Up the River
by Thessaly
Summary: Intermission fic. Glinda is sent south to find Elphaba, hiding out somewhere in the Southlands. Glindafic with a cranky OC, overt Heart of Darkness refs, and many exclamation points. Off hiatus!
1. A Proposition

"You have to understand, Sir, that it was three and a half years ago and there hasn't," the young guardsman shifted in his seat and looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. "There has obviously been no attempt at, um, contact." He brushed a lock of gold hair out of his eyes. "Sir."

"Yes, it's all right, Tiggular." General Gandin gave the young man an avuncular look. "I just thought it best to try all avenues. That's all." The general moved his papers aside, seemed to think for a moment, and then pulled up a blank sheet. While the guardsman waited, General Gandin wrote several lines, sealed the paper, and addressed it. "Tiggular, take this to Intelligence." He drew a deep breath. "I want Ludo Saranthos."

"Sir." Fiyero Tiggular took the order carefully and saluted.

---

_He wants Ludo Saranthos_. The whisper spread, from Fiyero to his confidential friends; from Big Nichol West to his young lady, and from Vessery Kareln to everybody he could find. The world spread through the staff as well; one chambermaid passed it on the her friend, and giggled. The friend rested her chin on her hand, sighed, and said, "_I_ want Ludo Saranthos," wistfully. "As if he'd have you," answered her friend, and giggled again.

And, like the winter bird that comes when he hears his name, Ludo Saranthos, part raven, part swamp fox, three-quarters Quadling and all precise, controlled intellect, presented himself before General Gandin the next morning. Gandin was not at his best in the mornings and gazed at his visitor with a dyspeptic eye.

"You rang, sir?" Saranthos stood in the doorway for a moment before entering and seating himself in the chair opposite the general. Intelligence were technically civilians and so, _technically_, Saranthos didn't have to salute.

"Erm-humph," said the general. "I needed to speak to you."

"At your service." Saranthos inclined his dark head briefly and fixed unblinking eyes on the general.

"I assume that you've heard the, hrrrrumph, rumours circulating about the Witch, Saranthos?"

"What you lot have passed over, yes."

"We've received," said the general, ignoring the barb with difficulty. It was a long-standing argument between Army and Intelligence over who got the information first and what they did with it. "Information which suggests that the witch holed up in the south; in the environs of a little town called Kurtzel. We want you to go and find her."

Saranthos raised an eyebrow. "_Me_? You and your superiours want to send _me_?"

The general sighed and said uncomfortably, "We have – as I'm sure you're aware – no one of your, ummmmph, calibre and expertise in –"

A shadow of a smile lightened the other man's mouth. "Provincial matters?" he said nastily. "Of course not. In fact, I think you only have one person on your staff who even speaks decent Quadling, and he's a Winkie." The general didn't answer this because it was, after all, true. "And is this all I'm to work on?" Saranthos asked, voice light. "Some hunch that the Witch is somewhere in the outback?"

Uncomfortable, the general shuffled his papers. "No, of course not. We have a dossier of our information on the terrorist known as 'The Witch.' It's classified, but of course we'll allow you to have a look."

Saranthos took the folder without comment, flipping it open and looking down the documents. A few letters; dispatches; school pictures of a fierce young woman, her face angular and her skin a bright, rather disturbing green. Someone had written on the bottom that she was suspected, though not proven, then added later _proved_ in large, emphatic letters. "I'll need to take someone with me," Saranthos said, looking up.

"Oh? Yes." Gandin coughed.

"If you want to catch rats, General Gandin," said Saranthos, standing up, "I suggest you use cheese instead of heavy artillary."

---

As Press Attache, Glinda Arduenna had a two-room office suite. The outer was a waiting room, manned by her very own secretary, a shy younger girl named Aramin, brought by Glinda with her from her very exclusive finishing school. The inner was Glinda's own private domain. She had re-decorated it herself, in salmon and ecru silks and little carved chairs. She had even hunted down a pretty desk, craved with roses and graceful, curling lines. Her windows faced south and caught light most of the day, although light on its own was not allowed in Miss Glinda's sitting room: it was filtered through a layer of lace and then entered the room in orderly rays around the salmon and ecru striped curtains.

Today, however, was not offering her any light; the grey August skies threatened rain which hadn't quite fallen, and the wind played with leaves just beginning to think about autumn. Glinda glanced at the clock, which showed 3:00 exactly, and sighed. Waiting was such an unpleasant sort of thing to do and it was no help to know that Mr. Saranthos was coming by at some point this afternoon. A frown crossed her brow and she nibbled her lower lip. Why this? And why this _now_? A wild goose-chase for Elphie was hardly a sensible idea, surely? People could get hurt.

She stood up, walked to the bookshelf, and moved aside the dried flowers and porcelain pieces to reach the short row of school books. They included a little-used Quadling dictionary. If Mr. Very-Official-And-Important Saranthos wasn't going to give her fair warning, Glinda concluded, she might as well try and remember some of her Finishing School Quadling (touched upon in the compulsory "Diversity of Oz" course their second year).

She turned the pages and the words trickled through her brain like fine sand. What fool language declined their nouns? What was the point when you could just add an apostrophe s the way you did in UO? Her clock gave another almost imperceptible tick and then chimed the quarter hour gently. Resting her chin on her hand and playing with one loose curl, Glinda leaned over the dictionary like a student, her lips shaping the words she had learned a few years ago and forgotten after the exam. "_Eimai_ Glinda Arduenna. _Eimai appo teen_ the upper uplands. Oh, drat." She flipped the pages until she found the phrase she was looking for. "Pos…pos…ee-s-ta-y. _Pos estay_. _Pos estay_?"

"_Eimai appo teen Nea Psykiko_," said someone. Glinda jumped and looked up from the dictionary. The speaker was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and looking at her. "_Legomai_ Ludovikh Saranthopolous. _Ese_?" Who the he – heavens was he? How did he get in?

"Glinda," she said blankly. "Who are _you_? How did you –"

"_Ti kaneis_, Glinda?" His voice cut neatly over hers as if she hadn't spoken.

She blinked. She remembered that one…maybe. Hang on. " _Polly kala, ekfaristo_."

Her Quadling interrogator – for Quadling he must be, with his black hair combed back from his triangular face and the very pronounced cheekbones – laughed. "_Efkaristo_," he corrected, the smile hovering around his mouth. "Say it. _Ef-khar-is-tow_."

"_Efkaristo_," said Glinda, feeling a bit sulky.

He smiled a little bit more. "You're welcome."

"Who _are_ you?" Glinda glared up at him. A long way – he was tall.

"I told you." He uncrossed his arms and walked into the room, seating himself on the closest chair. "And you must be Miss Glinda Arduenna."

"I am." Glinda shuffled her hands before her on the desk and dropped her voice a few degrees. "I'm sorry, I really didn't catch your name."

He made a clucking sound. "You aren't going to do very well if you don't listen, are you, Miss Glinda? Ludovikh Saranthopolous, like I told you."

"Mr. Sarantho – Saranthopo," she gave up. "Look, why are you here? I don't know you."

"Nor do I know you."

"So why are you here, and what gives you the right to talk to me like that?"

"Like what? Oh, you mean in Quadling." He laughed again. "It's a language, _thespinis_ Glinda. It's meant to be spoken."

"Yes, but it's not _mine_."

"But it _is_ mine, and it's still a language," he said with unfaultable logic.

Glinda pouted then pulled her mouth into its natural look of sweet helpfulness. Unnatural Contortions of the Facial Area, as Miss Rotsey had spent four three years reminding her, Brought on Wrinkles. "What are you doing here?" The Quadling lounged in his chair and surveyed Glinda for a long time. "I beg your pardon," she said. "Do you speak UO? I'm used to gentlemen standing when they address me, although I might not expect that from someone like you."

"Enough." The man – Ludovikh? – fixed her with a direct look, from eyes of a peculiar dense brown. "My name is Ludovikh Saranthopolous. I am a member of the Wizard's Intelligence Force." He looked her up and down, eyes taking in, she felt, everything from her little tilted hat to her shoes, tucked neatly around each other under the chair. He added, with a hint of malice in his voice, "And I speak excellent UO, Quadling, Old Munchkin, and the three major Vinkuus dialects."

"Saranthopolous." The light went on and Glinda was half appalled and half annoyed. "_You_ areLudo Saranthos?" She blinked, then rallied. "I _do_ beg your pardon," she said in the voice which had recently quashed an impertinent young banker. "I must have mistaken you for someone of quality."

"I must have mistaken you for a spoiled Gillikinese princess," said the Quadling easily. "This is for you with Madam the Press Secretary's compliments. I'll wait for an answer." He extracted a stiff envelope from his bag. "Provided you can write one."

Glinda found that she couldn't say anything. There was just _no answer_ for that, or indeed for any of this kind of treatment. "I shall give it my best," she said coldly, then skimmed the letter and wrote a quick response, trying to ignore the rustle of Saranthos prowling about her immaculate little office. "_If_ you've seen all you want?"

Saranthos turned and gave her a curt little nod. "I have, thank you. _Kalinihktasas_,_ thespinis_ Glinda."

She remained seated, putting her chin up. "I assume you can show yourself out?"

He smiled and left the room. Glinda Arduenna gave him one minute, counted on the quiet wall clock, then stood and walked to her mirror, where she proceeded to ignore picturesquely the well-meant suggestions of Miss Rotsey.

---

"Ludovikh Saranthopolous," said Fiyero lugubriously, leaning back in the booth. "I love Quadling; it's so…gooey." He straightened himself and looked across the table at Glinda. "Explain again."

"Some Army mucky-muck got it into his head that El – The Witch is hiding out in Quadling country and asked Saranthos to go find her, him being their Quadling expert and all."

"You could say that."

"And then _he_ turns up in my office and says that I'm coming too. Because I am – was – her friend or something."

"Oh." Fiyero planted both elbows on the table and his chin on his hands and looked at her. "Are you going?"

"Yes." Glinda pleated her napkin and let the wrinkles slide out. "I think. Maybe. I haven't decided." She looked up. "Fiyero, what – what do you think?"

"She's changed, Galoony. You know that, right?"

"I suppose she must have."

"She has." Fiyero's face had darkened a little. "She's more…ruthless, I think. Remember when they took Dillamond away? That's her now, all the time." Across the table, Glinda shivered.

"So you're saying I shouldn't go?"

"I'm not _saying_ anything. Heavens, Glindabelle, you want me to make a _decision_? No, for that you need your new friend Saranthos."

"He is _not_ my friend!" She threw a grape at him.

It bounced off his nose into his salad and Fiyero, startled, began to laugh. "Photo-op right there."

"Too right; it's a pity no one got a shot of that."

Fiyero chuckled. "Society Belle Starts Food-Fight in Popular Night-Spot."

"Prince Charming First Victim. Subheading: What Did He Say?"

"Custom Increases Ten-Fold at Luminous Lovelies Café."

"Fall Fashion Tips: Dress for Grape-Hurling, and how to keep that pesky vinaigrette off your muslins."

They were both laughing when waiter brought the main course. "We could sell a whole paper, don't you think?" said Glinda eventually.

"Just tell Maddic that."

"Oh, sugar – I forgot. He wants you for a photo-shoot to open the new playground in the city centre. Are you free next weekend? I've got it written down," Glinda reached for her reticule and Fiyero leaned across the table and caught her wrist.

"Glindabelle…"

"What?"

"Don't. Not right now. That's the real world; it doesn't belong here." He tugged at the wrist he was holding, pulling her arm across the table. "Haven't you forgotten Rule Number 3?"

"What was that?"

Fiyero grinned at her, dimples tucking back and his hair dropping forward into his eyes. "Don't Make Any Plans on a Friday Night that are Serious." He pushed the fabric of her glove back and kissed the inside of her wrist lightly.

Glinda giggled. "What are the other two rules?"

"Hmm? Oh. Um. Rule Number 1 is Don't Make Any Plans that Don't Include Me and Rule Number 2 is…uh…I'll think of it."

"Rule Number 2 should be Don't Make a Fool Out of Yourself in Public," said a new voice, "but I doubt that it is." Fiyero put Glinda's hand down slowly and tilted his head up. Glinda jumped and turned quickly.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"If you ever address me without italics on the pronoun," said Ludo Saranthos, "I will collapse in shock. Hello, _paithi_." Glinda put her nose in the air. Saranthos turned to Fiyero. "Tiggular, I presume? We haven't met, but I heard quite a lot about you."

"If you're Saranthos, likewise." Fiyero half-stood and offered a hand, which the other man shook. "Sit down, won't you?"

"Fiyero!"

"I'd like a word." Saranthos slid into the booth on Fiyero's side. Glinda ostentatiously turned her attention to her spinach and mushroom pastry and reflected that Saranthos not only turned up out of nowhere, but even had the impertinence to look entirely at home in the restaurant.

Luminous Lovelies was the new hot-spot on the Emerald City. Glinda and Fiyero had discovered the little restaurant and dance hall on one of their jaunts several months ago. Glinda had been immediately taken by the décor, all low lights and low ceilings, the seats covered in red leather and the tables gleaming with wax. Fiyero liked the food and the service, and so they had kept coming back. Once the tabloid press got wind of where their leading Bright Young Things were spending their time, Luminous Lovelies suddenly became popular. The clientele had become somewhat elite, and the evening staff enforced a strict dress code.

Saranthos and Fiyero were talking; introducing themselves, it sounded like. Glinda gathered from the conversation that Fiyero had been thrown out of the school from which Saranthos had graduated. "Shiz? And here I thought that was newspaper fabrication."

Fiyero laughed. "No, it's actually true: I have a genuine Shiz degree in History and Linguistics. Although I do have a confession," he dropped his voice. "It's not only a degree, it's _honours_."

"Unnamed God forbid." The Quadling man gestured across the table. "Is that where you found this one?"

"Hmm." Fiyero seemed to think this was one enormous _joke_. "She found me, actually. Flirted with me non-stop first year, then gave me a right talking-to and refused to speak to me for three months."

"Imagine that." Saranthos grinned. "Why was that, _paithi_?"

"Something that doesn't need to be shared," said Glinda. "How did you get in here, anyway?"

One thin eyebrow sailed upwards. "I walked."

"I mean, what did you have to pay the doorman to get in? Or did you just use our names?"

"Neither." Saranthos glanced at Fiyero, who made a non-committal gesture. "The doorman knows who I am." He looked around the room. "I've never been in here before. It's pretty, I suppose, and the music isn't bad."

"Oh, so you know about music?"

"Certainly; don't you?"

Glinda bristled, sitting up a little straighter and placing her hands together on the table in front her. "Mr. Saranthos, what do I look like to you? _Of course_ I know about music. I've had a very thorough education which included a detailed study of all branches of arts, sciences, and modern languages. I am a highly qualified and highly competent individual, and I don't see why I should have to, to properly explain that to you."

Saranthos looked at her for a long time, surveying her face with his dark eyes. Fiyero blinked a few times and then reached out and patted her hand. Thank the Unnamed God for Fiyero, who knew she didn't have to prove anything and who recognized good breeding when he saw it. Finally the Quadling said, voice soft and guileless, "All that education and they didn't teach you not to egregiously split infinitives?" He looked at Fiyero. "Does she always do this?"

"Fiyero!"

"No comment." Fiyero reached over and stole an olive off her plate. "I'm not going South; don't get me involved in this."

"Aren't you supposed to be defending me from harassment?"

"You're hardly being harassed, Glindabelle."

"But…"

"All right, look," he said, taking another olive and nibbling, "Saranthos, kindly refrain from taking pot-shots at Miss Glinda. Glinda, try not to overdo the highly qualified and competent individual thing. In other words," he looked from one to the other. "Behave."

"Thank you," said Saranthos after a moment. "I'd like to talk to both of you about Elphaba Thropp. Miss Glinda, can you tell me what she was like the first time you met her?"

_Wonderful_.

_The last straw._ Glinda stood up, dropping her napkin. "Excuse me. I've given absolute loads of interviews about this and I'd really rather not do another one. I'm sure you'll find all the answers to your questions in the Intelligence archives. I'm going – I need a breath of fresh air." She turned and walked decourously out to the ladies room – the Press was already going to have a field day with the fact that Saranthos was talking to them and there was no point in giving them more to talk about. There were three doors back there, two for the facilities and one for a side door, which, thank goodness, was not locked.

Glinda let herself out into a thunderstorm. The wind flattened her bell-shaped skirts back against her legs and blew straight through the brocade of her jacket and wrap. Behind her, the door slammed on its deadbolt. She stood still, letting the misty rain blow direct into her face and yank her curls out behind her. By rights she should have hated it, but it was more alive than unpleasant. Wild and exciting and new, to be out in the middle of a storm. The lightening danced above the clouds, lighting up the sky in half-hidden flashes that, when they did appear, showed only plum-coloured clouds. The thunder rumbled more than cracked, a thrum of energy from nowhere and going nowhere, but building. Glinda wrapped her arms around her waist and stared up at the sky letting the rain pour down over her wet face and ruined hair. It was an exhilarating feeling and made her think, as she often did, of Elphie. Elphie, missing for nearly three years now; gone off on a broomstick. Glinda found herself hoping, a little helplessly, that her friend had the sense not to go out in bad weather.

The door banged behind her and she didn't move. Warm hands wrapped around her waist and found her fingers, clutching them. "You're freezing," said Fiyero. "Come inside."

"What's it like up there, do you think?"

Behind her, she felt Fiyero move to tip his head up into the wild weather and look at the sky. "I don't know," he said softly. "I can't even imagine. It must be huge." He looked down and squeezed her waist. "Cold. Wet."

"Is he gone?"

"Saranthos? No, not yet."

"I can't answer his questions, Fiyero." She said it softly and she didn't know if he even heard it over the wind. "I don't know how."

She felt him sigh, then squeeze her hands. "Neither do I, Glindabelle. Neither do I."

"Do you think," she swallowed, shook the rain out of her face. "Do you think he could find her, if I came too?"

"Glinda, if half the things I've heard about that man are half-true, he'll find her whether you're there or not."

"But if I were there I'd be able to speak to her." Glinda leaned back against Fiyero, sturdy and comforting. "She'd talk to me, wouldn't she?"

"I hope so."

"Me too." She turned in the circle of his arms. "Will you take me home now?"

He nodded. "Tell you what, you stay out here and I'll sneak in, grab our coats, and let Ludo-silly-Saranthos wait until dawn."

**A/N** _This is an experiment; we'll see how it works out. Disclaimers abound. 1. The characters belong to Maguire and the musical team. 2, and this is more important, I really am a Fiyerba shipper, but I can't fight what the story demands, and Glinda's obviously crazy about him. 3. Ludo and Glinda's "Quadling," which is really transliterated Greek, means the following: I am Glinda Arduenna. I am from the upper Uplands. How about you? I am from Nea Psykiko and my name is…Ti kaneis – how are you doing? Poli kala efkaristo – very well, thank you. Kalinihktasas is goodnight and thespinis is Miss. Paithi means kid, Humphrey Bogart style._

_This goes well with, but does not require, reading my other Wicked fic (Black as Midnight, Sweet as Sin) and fits in between Defying Gravity and Thank Goodness, a period I estimate to be about five years. Don't forget to feed the author._


	2. Indigents

"Another half inch on the side, I think."

The dressmaker shuffled around to Glinda's left and pinned the hem straight. She leaned back and said, "Miss?"

Glinda the Good placed one manicured finger in the centre of her strawberry-pink lips and considered her reflection in the mirror. The dress was white, with layers of satin draped over the crinoline and pulled back to a flower-shaped bustle. The skirt shifted when she moved, like a great white flower with Glinda's graceful bead-lined bodice and flaxen curls rising out of the middle. She put her head on one side. "I think," she said thoughtfully, "that it could use a bit more colour. I mean," she giggled, "I look absolutouesly _bridal_. And we can't have that, can we, Shen?" She turned, looking around the fitting-room of one of the Emerald's City's more exclusive Bridal Shops, then stepped off the stool in a rush of white, returning with a roll of lilac satin. "What if you ran some purple around the waist here and then put a little line of flowers at the neckline. See." She spread the satin over her skirt and let it hang, glimmering.

"You know, Miss," said the dressmaker, "I think you might have an idea. Of course, if the bride disagrees…?"

"Don't be silly," Glinda trilled. "Of _course_ Shen agrees, don't you Shen?"

Shen-Shen jumped and looked at her friend, draped in purple and white. "Oh, yes, absolutely. It'll be stunning, Glinda, and it will look so darling with the lilacs."

"That's what I thought."

"Excuse me, Miss," the dressmaker intervened. "I have to go check on the front of the shop. I'll just be gone a few moments."

"Of course, do go on," said Glinda absently.

Shen ventured a question. "Can I see you turn in it, Glin?"

In answer, Glinda spun around like a dancer, the skirt flaring away from her legs in a swirl of white. "It really is a beautiful dress," she said, when she had stopped.

"Hmm." Shen leaned her chin on her hand. She and Glinda had similar colouring, but Shen was apricot-blonde where Glinda was pale gold, and languid where Glinda was pert. "It's lovely. Oh, Glinda, I'm so _excited_."

"You must be! Fancy you getting married; when do I get to meet him? Here, come help me get this thing off."

"We're coming to the city in a few months, so then, obviously." Shen came over and began undoing the pins down the back. "You know what seems funny, Glin?"

"What?" Glinda shrugged the dress off and began redressing in her russet tweed walking suit.

"Me getting married before you."

"Oz!" Glinda walked to the closet mirror to fix her hair. "Why would I get married, Shen? I mean, obviously _sometime_, but not _now_! After all," she smiled at her reflection. "I have a Career."

"Of course; the Career. Glin?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you going South?"

Glinda moved too quickly and grazed her scalp with her hat pin. "It's –" She wasn't sure what she could say. Explaining the gut need to find and speak to Elphie was something that Glinda could barely explain to Fiyero, let alone Shen. "It's Politics," she said, finally, adjusting the angle of her hat. "They want a part of the Press Staff along on the expedition for – for appropriate dissemination of information and increased communication with the Quadling indigents. And, of course, it'll be a wonderful opportunity for me to see more of this diverse country. Don't you think?"

Shen looked a little startled. "Definitely," she said after a moment.

There was a soft, ironic clapping from the door. "Very pretty, paithi."

Glinda sighed. "_You_ again?"

"But of course."

"There's a – a – a visitor for you, Miss," said the dressmaker from behind Saranthos.

"Yes, I see that. Thank you." Glinda sighed dramatically and stalked over the Saranthos. "What can I do for you?" she asked him in a low voice. "I told Aramin that I was busy, so unless it's urgent, you have _no right_ to come barging in here."

"I have every right," said Saranthos shortly. "And do I take it from your party piece that you have decided to join me? Because you really do owe me an answer."

"I wasn't aware I had a choice."

He gave his little cat smile. "You didn't."

"Well, in that case, I suppose I am coming."

"For appropriate dissemination of information and increased communication with the Quadling indigents?"

"Well…yes. Obviously."

"Do you even know what those words mean, paithi? And what's it like when even your friends don't know what you're talking about?"

"I'm not going to answer that," said Glinda. "And please refrain from making fun of a very old school friend."

"She doesn't look that old to me."

"Mr. Saranthos, what have you got to say?"

He put a wrapped brown parcel into her hands. "I've said it. We leave in three weeks; these are for you to learn a little bit more about the Quadling indigents in this diverse country."

"Thank you, I'm sure." He lingered, looking down at her. "You can go now."

"Miss Arduenna, has anyone ever told you –"

"What?" she snapped. She might have known; he was going to harass her after all.

Ludo Saranthos leaned closer until her could whisper in her ear. "Has anyone ever told you that your dress doesn't match the décor?"

Glinda pulled away and glared at him. He was, of course, right that russet-brown was a wee bit out of place in the white and gold bridal shop, but, _really_. Of all the things to say…! She gathered her dignity, which always seemed a little less helpful when Saranthos was around. "As a matter of fact, no, they haven't. And I believe you're finished here, Mr. Saranthos. Unless you were looking for a dress of your own?"

Saranthos gave his annoying, quiet laugh. "As you wish. Goodbye, _thespinis_ Glinda."

---

As promised, they departed in three weeks. They left the city on a train in a first-class compartment, Saranthos hidden behind a newspaper. Glinda thought privately that he was sulking, though she wasn't about to tell him that. She leaned out the open window and waved to Fiyero, who stood on the platform, looking a bit forlorn and waving. When he was out of sight, she closed the window and but continue to look out, watching the world go by.

"What are you looking at?" Saranthos closed his newspaper with a rustle. "The rich diversity of the countryside?"

"Stop making fun of me," she answered without moving. "It _is_ a diverse country."

"Of course it is. But you only mean the part that minds its manners and talks nicely."

"I refuse to comment." Glinda focused on the fields of poppies on her side of the train and the brilliant red against the deep blue of the sky. At some point she fell asleep, and dreamed of nothing in particular. She felt safe, lulled by the train movement.

It was, of course, Saranthos who woke her with a none-too-gentle shake. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty. We change here."

"Hmm?" Glinda sat up and rubbed her eyes. The rolling fields had flattened into an expanse of empty space stretching out in all directions. "Where are we?"

He named a town she knew was some sort of rail yard, and, grabbing his own rolled bag, lead the way out of the train, Glinda stumbling after with her bag. "How long until the next one?"

"An hour, I think."

"Oh, lovely." Glinda dropped her bag. "I want coffee." She turned, paused, then looked over her shoulder. "You want anything?" The words came stiffly, but she was going to have to put up with him for the next month, so she'd better be nice, right?

Saranthos blinked at her. "No," he said finally. "No, think you."

_Ah-hah_. Glinda practically skipped to the little coffee stand. The trick to dealing with Saranthos was to think of him like Elphie and behave accordingly.

They boarded the second train as the evening fell and Glinda soon lost her landscape. Bored, she turned to face Saranthos. "What happens next?"

He gave her an ironic look. "Glinda, paithi, did you read _any_ of the books I gave you?"

She flushed. "Some. Bits of them. I had a lot to do at work and absolute _loads_ to get organized before you dragged me away for so long."

"Ah. Well, we get off at Guellen, and then we portage – do you know what that word means?"

"Yes, I do," said Glinda. "Although I don't think we really are. Portaging, I mean."

"Oh?"

"Well, it _really_ means going from one river to another and we're going from the train to the river, so –"

"Enough." Saranthos looked like he was going to laugh. "You never said you were pedantic."

"What does _that_ mean?"

"Never mind. We portage to Myrikos and get the rest of our things."

"We have _more_?"

"Tents, food, that kind of thing. We'll get that, and our boat, and then we'll head down the _Megalos Potamos_ until we get to Kurtzel and the Muggy Bottom."

Glinda giggled. "What silly names you have for everything. Muggy Bottom? It sounds a bit…risqué." She shifted in her seat. "What's the Megalos whatsis?"

"_Megalos Potamos_? It's the main river through the Southlands. It means Big River."

"Wow." Glinda turned away from him, put her head against the corner by the window, and went to sleep in defense. She was still dozing an hour or so later and disorientated enough that she thought afterwards she might have imagined it.

Through her eyelashes, she saw Saranthos dig into his rolled pack beside him and pull out a leather-bound book. He flipped it open to a section at the back and read, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he sighed and muttered something explosive which Glinda assumed must be a curse-word in Quadling. "Damn," he said softly in UO, rubbing his eyes. "Damn, damn, _damn_. Where _is_ it?" A few seconds later Glinda realized he had not said "she," meaning Elphie, meaning the real reason they were going south. No, he had said "it." So either he referred to Elphie as an It – not unheard of – or, Glinda shut her eyes tight and felt a little flip in her stomach that was half excitement and half fear, Saranthos had was going for something else. He had A Secret. Which was it? And what kind of secret could he have anyway?

---

They walked into Myrikos four days later. Glinda had a blister on her left foot and her beautiful, symmetrical curls had been _destroyed_, turned into fluffy, snarled knots. Elf-locks said Saranthos, and laughed when she asked him what he meant by that. Her bag weighed more than _she_ did, as far as she could figure, and she hadn't had a bath in almost a week.

She followed Saranthos through the centre of the town. It was purple Quadling night – never quite dark, just a sort of dense purple. As far as Glinda could tell, Quadling country had three colours: purple, brown, and green, and one level: flat. They walked past little square stone buildings, none over one storey, all shut up to keep the tepid night air out. He stopped before one of them which was still open, soft pink-tinged lanterns outside the door and the sound of strange music drifting out.

A girl came to the open door and smiled at Saranthos. "_Yasas_," she purred, flashing several inches of leg and a generous expanse of chest. Glinda blinked.

Saranthos only laughed. "_Yasas_, Polly. Would you get Yiorgo for me?"

The girl stood still for a minute, then said in quite another tone, "Ludo? Unnamed God, my eyes are going."

"If that's it, you should do all right." He leaned over and kissed her on both cheeks. "Tell Yiorgo we're here; he's offered to put us up for the night."

"Us?" Polly peered into the darkness and Glinda lifted a hand and dimpled. Polly turned away rather quickly and vanished. Saranthos shrugged.

"Well, paithi, shall we?"

"Saranthos," said Glinda, grabbing his arm. "Is this a _brothel_?"

"Oh, so you _do_ know that word? Good; I was afraid I'd have to explain."

"I can't go in there!" She hung onto his arm. "What do you take me for?"

He looked down at her. "I take you for a very tired little girl who needs a wash and a brush. This is just the place for that, trust me."

"But –"

"Look, I'm not going to sell you to a Quadling prostitution ring." He looked up as another figure approached. "Oh, Yiorgo. Hullo."

"Ludo!" Yiorgo appeared to be a short, rotund man with a bristling moustache. He embraced Ludo and bowed to Glinda, ushering them both into and through the anteroom. Glinda stared around, taking in the pink and gold draperies. Naturally she'd never been in a house of ill-repute before and she found she was just a little bit curious.

Yiorgo took them through a curtain of opaque blue silk and into a sensible little kitchen where he placed them both on chairs and shouted. A moment later, a neatly-dressed girl came in and said something in Quadling. Their host let out a fall of words illustrated with much hand-waving. Saranthos joined the conversation and Glinda, exhausted, thought she caught the words she was coming to hate – "_E thespinis Glinda_" – somewhere in that torrent of impossible consonants.

"And Teresa, she will take care of you, yes?" Yiorgo was looking at her with a concerned face. Glinda rallied.

"Of course. Thank you so much, _Kurio_ Yiorgo. I really appreciate it." She smiled at him the way she smiled at school children who gave her flowers and the old men who kissed her hand and told her she looked like Lurline. It seemed to have the same effect on Yiorgo, who flushed under his swarthy cheeks and muttered something. The girl, Teresa, came over to Glinda and stared. Glinda looked at her. "_Legeis_ Universal Ozian?" she said slowly.

Although Teresa was either stupid or dazzled – and what a nice familiar feeling that was after trekking through bogs! – or both and didn't seem to be able to say more that "yes, _thespinis_" and "no, _thespinis_," she directed Glinda to a most spelendiforous bath house with a tub the size of a swimming pool. Being away from Cranky Ludo Saranthos plus the bath was enough to sweeten anyone's temper, even if they were naturally nice, she thought complacently, settling back in her bubbles.

---

"_Fedelma_!" said Yiorgo when Glinda came back into the main building. "You look so clean and fresh, like flowers, Miss Glinda."

She laughed. "Thank you. I have to say, Yiorgo, your bathtub is _heavenly_."

"_Parakalow_, Miss Glinda, _parakalow_." She fumbled for a minute and realized that the hard-edged p and k word only meant thank you. "Now, something to eat?" He produced, like magic, a plate of something green and brown, and a steaming mug. Glinda for once didn't ask what was put in front of her, but picked up the flat spoon and ate.

Yiorgo sat with her in the kitchen and asked her about the city and what she did there – how strange, that there were people so far away that they had never heard of _her_, Glinda the Good, the Star of Oz.

"Yiorgo?" said Glinda, putting her spoon down and patting her mouth with a napkin. "Can I ask you a question?"

"But of course you may. What can I answer?"

"Can you tell me about Ludo Saranthos?" One corner of Yiorgo's moustache darted upwards. "I mean," she said, trying to fill up the silence, "I'm traveling with him, and I just wondered about him, because I don't know him – I'd never met him before – and he's so…so…it's hard to ask him questions." She bit down on the corner of her lip and tried to look shy, a little embarrassed, helpless, and quizzical all at once. "Do you see what I mean?"

Yiorgo chuckled. "I see. But, Miss Glinda, even I don't know very much about our Ludo. He turned up in Myrikos when he was maybe twenty, and looking for information. He was a," Yiorgo paused awkwardly, "a spy, I think. For the Wizard, trying to find the end of the Resistance cells."

Glinda caught her breath. "_Really_?" Shocking! And rather interesting, provided he wasn't after _her_. She'd never met a spy before, although she and Shen used to read silly books about dashing spy heroes back at school.

"But yes." Yiorgo leaned closer and Glinda leaned inward as well, rapt. "They say all sorts of things about him, Miss Glinda. That his father was an avatar for the Old Religion, and that he killed his uncle and spent three years in Southstairs. They say he can see in the dark and track a man by his breathing, and that once Ludovikh Saranthopolous decides to kill a man, nothing on this earth can save him."

---

"Here."

"Gracious." Glinda stared at Saranthos and then at the object in his hand, and then up again. "What am I going to do with _that_?"

"Shoot things, perhaps?" Saranthos held out the gun.

"Like what?" Glinda shoved a clean shirt into her pack, tried to do it up, failed, and sighed explosively. How on _Earth_ did Saranthos fit all of his things into that little roll? And why couldn't _she_ do it? She looked up at him again. "I'm in danger?"

"Paithi, for all practical purposes this country is still under military occupation, and you're small and blonde. If the soldiers don't go after you, the indigents probably will."

"So I'm supposed to _shoot_ them?" Her voice rose in a little squeal. "With a gun?"

"If you have another way, you're welcome to try it. Here, take this."

"Hang on." Glinda pushed at the top of her pack and, with a squeak, secured the ties. Then she stood up, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and reluctantly took the weapon. It was a very small gun, a dull heavy silver. It made a slight clacking noise when she shook it. "How do I –"

Saranthos put out a hand and turned the muzzle away from his chest until it pointed at the window. "You don't fire it inside."

"So – ?"

"So, I'll show you what to do with it _outside_. Get your ball-gown and curling tongs and your roll-away palace and come along, _thespinis_ – we're heading out."

Glinda followed him out into the morning and out of the town. She was walking into the unknown, carrying a heavy unfamiliar weapon and following some sort of spy-assassin with a murky past and a short temper. _Wonderful_.

**A/N** _Characters and geography not mine, though I've warped it a bit. More stuff next chapter, I promise. I seem to be having trouble with exposition at the moment._


	3. Asking Questions

_Expected: hands and feed ache, funny-tasting food, not enough funny-tasting food, wet feet, crankified travel buddy._

_Unexpected: Quadling lessons, leaning to shoot a gun, cooking on an open fire, sitting in a boat, eating in a boat, rowing a boat, in short, a boat. _

_That Quadling country is beautiful_.

It was. She discovered this during their half day's trek to the river and continued to watch the landscape develop before her as they took to the water. While the land between the station and Myrikos had been flat and colourless, the outskirts of the swamp were anything but. Huge trees, taller than all but the tallest buildings in the Emerald City, loomed around them, filtering the sun into dancing shafts of gold that fell around the two travelers, giving the slightly humid air the colour and texture of honey. Things grew everywhere in a profusion Glinda found slightly disturbing – plants were little and _organized_, not spilling over with quite this much enthusiasm. The swamp was shades of green from vivid to a deep, secretive chartreuse, tinted with purple and blue and many varieties of brown.

Here and there she caught a glimpse of a scarlet or purple bird winging just below the trees and sometimes she saw fish in the water. But other than that, it was eerily quiet. The first night, when they fastened their little boat to some tie-up spot Saranthos could see and Glinda couldn't, she discovered that night fell fast and decidedly.

"Can we, you know, have a fire?"

"You're cold?" Saranthos was just visible as a dim shadow near her, rustling in a slightly disturbing fashion.

"No-o…it's just a little," she looked around, "dark."

"That tends to happen at night." There was a crinkle and she supposed he was now in his bedroll. "We don't need one, and you might have noticed a singular lack of things to burn. Unless you _want_ to go collecting wood right now?"

Glinda curled up in a ball and tried to sleep. She thought of Fiyero and the way he smiled when he was making a joke, and the light tug of him pulling her hair. He had stopped doing that, she thought hazily, ever since she'd come back to the City. Must have grown out of it…

She woke to pitch black. A complete darkness which muffled her like a piece of giant felt and was textured only by sounds: the click and rustle of unknown insects, a far-off cry that might have been a mating bird but was probably something large with big teeth and an insatiable appetite. Glinda lay perfectly still and shivered in terror. This wasn't happening. She was an adult and knew better than to be afraid of the dark. This was ridiculous; just think what Madam Morrible or, Oz forbid, the _Wizard_ would think if they knew their brilliant protégée was laying on her back (on top of, incidentally, a very large and pointy rock) in Quadling country, terrified of the dark. But the Emerald City had never seemed so far away.

After some interminable amount of time, the swamp noises quieted a bit and Glinda heard another sound that nearly made her scream. Someone very near her was mumbling. She imagined, terrified, Quadling natives with stone-sharpened knives and painted faces. Or lecherous soldiers who had snuck up to the camp and murdered Saranthos before ravishing – Wait. Saranthos. Glinda rolled up on one elbow. The mumbling was still going on, a bubbling monotonous run of something which might have been Quadling. "Saranthos?" she gulped. "Saranthos? _Ludo_?"

The mumbling stopped. "What?"

Glinda found she was shaking, in relief this time. "No-nothing. I was just – I –"

"Hmm?" He sat up and, quite unexpectedly, a hand touched her leg. She shrieked. "Glinda? Glinda, paithi, are you afraid of the dark?"

"Well I wouldn't be if you didn't talk in your sleep!" She sniffed. "I'm not _afraid_, exactly. It's different. And we're afraid of what's different, you know?"

"How philosophical. I talk in my sleep?" Saranthos chuckled softly. "I've never had complaints."

"Maybe," said Glinda with an uncharacteristic sarcasm, "you weren't _sleeping_."

The boat-ride the next day was quiet. Glinda was stiff and pale; she hadn't been able to go back to sleep and though Saranthos' teasing was bracing, it didn't completely keep the terrors at bay and she had stayed awake most of the night straining against the stifling felt of the Dark (somewhere in that agelong period it had acquired a capital letter) and jumping every time something rustled.

In the late afternoon, Saranthos steered them over to the bank and jumped out to tie up the boat. "Come on," he said, beckoning.

"Are we there?"

"No, far from it. But I need to walk around a little and this part of the forest should be safe enough." He paused and looked at her. "There's a bit of a stream that way if you want to have a private wash without the swamp-weed. Yell if you need something."

Glinda stared at him, dumbfounded, then stuttered out, "thank you," and went in the direction he'd gestured. There was indeed a stream, a little fresh-water brook that bubbled out of the ground and formed a very small lake, then vanished under the swampy water table again. And there, at the source, "Oh! Saranthos!" He came quickly, looking alarmed. "Look!" Glinda was on her knees beside a little group of flowers growing in the water. "Aren't they _beautiful_? What are they?" Saranthos stared at her. Glinda looked back. They were white flowers, the petals veined in a delicate blue and the tips edged in silver. She ascertained that yes, they were indeed growing directly _in_ the water. What was more amazing was that the immediate water around them was frozen and the flowers themselves seemed to be made of frost. When she put her hands near the blossoms, they got cold. She turned a smiling face upwards. "Well, haven't they got a name?"

"Yes," he said finally. "_Fedelmi_. They grow near entrances to the Otherworld."

"Oh." Glinda blinked. "How quaint. Will I get taken off by the goblins?"

"Probably not; the goblins only kidnap people on request. But watch out for strange men or strange animals."

"I should think any animal at this point would be strange."

"Too true," he said shortly. "In this part, what hasn't been dug up's been hunted out."

Glinda broke off a few chilly _fedelmi_ blossoms – Otherworld or no Otherworld, they were _pretty_ – and slipped them into one of her many pockets. "Saranthos?" she said when they were back on the river.

"What?" They faced each other, both with oars and Saranthos, facing forward, rowing and steering.

"You work for Intelligence, right?"

"I do, for my sins."

"Then why are you so anti-Wizard?"

He didn't answer for a long time. Finally he said, "I'm not anti-Wizard; what gave you that idea?"

"Well, back there you said –"

"_Are_ you going to row this boat, or are you going to gossip?" Glinda blinked, caught a look at the tight lines of his fact, and stayed quiet.

---

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did."

"Another one then."

Saranthos proffered that flickering smile. "Yes."

"Are there any roads in this country?" He stared at her across the middle of their boat. "Don't look at me like that," she added.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm stupid. I'm not." Glinda wrinkled her nose.

"Of course not. What was it? A highly qualified and highly competent individual."

"I only asked because it seems a bit silly to be rowing and getting _blisters_," she sighed heavily, "if we could, you know, take a tic-toc or something."

"This is faster," he said, steering them around a stump in the middle of the river. Glinda shipped her oars and waited for the maneuver to be completed.

"But how can it be?"

Saranthos rolled his eyes. "Shall I draw you a _map_, my undereducated ambassadress? Myrikos is on the river –"

"No it isn't," she said sulkily. "We had to walk for _hours_ to get there."

"Close enough. Kurtzel and Nea Psychiko are both on the river. The road goes, with standard Emerald City logic, in a straight line through this country, but the villages follow the river, and the river curves."

"So?" Glinda's hand slipped and the boat nosed towards the left back. Saranthos scrabbled to straighten it, then relaxed a little.

"So if we took the road we'd have to walk in a diagonal line through nasty jungles full of beetles and creepy-crawlies to get where we're going. It's easier to take the river down the Kurtzel and then come back up by the road."

"Oh, I see." She didn't, but the conversation didn't seem to have much point. The current carried them to where they were going with a little help from the rowers now and then.

---

She lost track of the days. She got used to the river quickly, although she did not learn the knack of staying dry while climbing into a boat. She learned to row and despaired of her hands which first acquired blisters, then a tan, and then callouses. Sometimes she looked at them under the golden forest light and didn't recognize the thin, scratched digits stretched out in front of her.

Her pretty clothes got dirty and stayed that way. _She_ got dirty, and accustomed to her hair being wavy instead of curled. She didn't like it, but somehow the colours of the forest, the greens and purples and golds, shot here and there with scarlet and the ghostly hue of little _fedelmi_ patches, made up for her own lack of splendour.

"It's beautiful here," she said, one night.

Saranthos, whose sleep schedule was erratic, said, "What a very generous concession, Miss Glinda. We like to think so."

"Oooh, here," she added, for she had noted this in an earlier, still sleepless, night. "Look." She dug around in the jacket she was currently using as a pillow and found the _fedelmi_ she had collected. "They glow in the dark."

"They do," Saranthos agreed. "Used to scare us silly when we were children," he added lazily.

"What, _you_ were a child? I thought you popped into the world twenty-five and crankified."

"Fortunately for a great many people, no." There was a stifled laugh from the corner where he had put out his bed-roll before the light went. It was easier to talk to him at night, Glinda thought. Though whether it was because she couldn't see him, or because he was more forthcoming, she couldn't tell.

"You mean _un_fortunately, don't you?" Glinda touched the cool blossoms with her finger. They didn't cast a lot of light, just a faint, silver-tinted glow that made her feel a little less alone, a little less trapped when she lay awake at nights. "They make me feel better," she said. She rolled over, tucked her hands under her cheek. "_Fedelmi_. It's a funny name; why are they called that?"

"It's from the Old Religion." Saranthos shifted in the dark. "There's a story about them."

Glinda waited. Then said, impatiently, "Well, go on, tell it; I'm not going to sleep or anything, and neither are you."

"Oh, are you sure?"

"I don't believe you _do_ sleep," said Glinda austerely. "I think you just lie awake and mutter and _pretend_ to sleep just to creep me out."

"Not the case, I assure you." He laughed again. "All right. Long ago, in the Dreamtime, when the world was a softer place and magic was in the folds of being, there was a prince named Prydos who was a master of every craft. He was the swiftest of foot, and the fastest with an arrow or blow-dart. His feats of battle were unmatchable. He was a poet and musician and had learned the chants and name lists of the tribe by the time he was thirteen, when he was as big and strong as any man of the region and handsomer than all of them.

"Prydos had been fostered with another clan because his parents were estranged. His mother was a great witch and his father was master of all the shapes of the forest, and they had quarreled. Because of the quarrel, his mother had cursed her son that he should marry no woman of any race then living on the Earth.

"And his father worried, because it was necessary for his son to wed. And finally the father spoke to the uncles, who spoke to the other members of the family and notables, and they put their magic together and made for Prydos a wife out of little silver-white flowers. They named her Fedelma, or flower-girl, and gave her to Prydos. And she was the most beautiful girl anyone had seen, with long hair like the palest of gold, and a winter-silver skin and blue, blue eyes.

"For a while, Prydos and his new wife lived together until one day, when Prydos was away, a foreign lord passed their dwelling as the night fell. Hospitality demanded that they house the passers-by, and Fedelma was nothing loathe to take in this lord, for he was handsome beyond her imaginings."

"If she's married," Glinda broke in, "to the master of all crafts who's handsomer than any other man in the country, she's got to be pretty picky."

Saranthos chuckled. "We can't _all_ date the tabloid idols, paithi. At any rate, Fedelma fell deeply in love and made the foreign lord her lover. He stayed with her a full length of the moon until her husband returned; the night before that, he kissed her and changed himself into a hawk, and flew away into the twilight. When her husband came home, she looked at him with new eyes and resented that she had been made for him and not been given her own choice. Discord came to the house; Prydos remembered that his woman was made of cold flowers and Fedelma herself recognized that she was alone. She conceived a child and carried it with a heart full of hatred and sorrow and longing for her vanished lover.

"Fedelma was brought to bed but no child appeared; only a handful of white flowers. The women attending her cried out that she was cursed, and Prydos in his own grief refused to see her. Fedelma ran to the window and begged for someone to take her away for she was weary of this life she had not chosen.

"And then, in her chamber, there appeared one of the Other folk, a great lord dressed in green and white silks, with long black hair and a sword all of silver. And he put out his hand, and Fedelma took it, and they both vanished, leaving behind only the white flowers that mark the entrances to the Otherworld caves."

Glinda let out her breath. "That's beautiful. What happened to Prydos?"

"I believe he became a great chieftain in his own right, fought in a number of battles, and finally died of a broken heart," said Saranthos.

"Oh." She touched the little blossoms, named for a long-ago princess and a long-ago history of love and betrayal and loss. "Are all your stories like that?"

"Like what?"

"Sad."

He was silent for a long time. "This is a sad country, paithi."

---

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

Glinda sighed. "When will we _get_ there?"

"Soon, most likely." Saranthos was in a terse mood today, saying little and staring off into space. His shoulders moved under his shirt as he redirected the boat; it looked like hard work but he never seemed to get tired. Glinda put it down to unholy amounts of black coffee the consistency of mud.

"So," she said, trying to be cheerful, "the end of the road tomorrow, maybe?"

"The end of the _road_? Oh, no, paithi; just the second station."

"Ohhhhh…" It was a long sigh, dragged out from too many sleepless nights on lumpy ground, and too much unfamiliarity. Glinda was suddenly sick of trees and birds and flowers that made her fingers sting with cold. "No! We _have_ to be there soon!"

"Mind over matter I've heard," said Saranthos, dragging them clear of a snag, "but mind over mileage is new. Care to explain?"

"Oh, stop it!" Glinda raised her hands and let them fall. "I'm sick of this, that's why. Sick of all these trees and _green_ and funny smells, especially since one of the funniest is _me_." Her voice rose progressively. "I didn't go through five years of school to be roughing it in some God-forsaken patch of ground that isn't even ground! I'm sick of Elphie and of you and I _don't want to do it anymore_!" She screwed up her face and, abruptly, burst into tears.

"Here now," said Saranthos suddenly, and lunged. "_Hell_," he added, ignoring the crying girl. "Now you're lost the damn oar. Don't move." He pulled the shirt over his head in on lithe movement and dropped into the water. Glinda, unaccustomed to her tears being ignored, almost stopped at the splash. She raised her face and stared, confused, at the wet head and brown shoulders skimming easily through the greenish water. Saranthos came back, his hands resting on the oar. "Are you finished?"

"What?" She peered over the edge of the boat.

"Are you finished? I'm sure it helps, but it's extremely self-indulgent."

Glinda pouted. "Are you calling me spoiled?"

"I most certainly am."

"Well, you're mean."

Saranthos regarded her with his head propped on his hands and tilted to one side, wet hair shining. "As a comeback, paithi, that leaves something to be desired."

"I'm feeling emotionally unstable," she said, and sniffed. "I'm not at all witty."

"What a pity." He smirked at the rhyme.

"Why are you in the water?"

"Flotsam and jetsam," said Saranthos. "The oar is the flotsam, I'm the jetsam."

She blinked. "You mean there's a difference? I always thought they just came together."

"Flotsam," said the man cheerfully, "is something which floats. Jetsam has been thrown out of the boat."

"Oh. Is it cold?"

"Not particularly." He splashed a little water at her.

"Eww, stop it!" She opened her eyes again. "I guess it's not that cold."

"Here." Saranthos held up the oar, and Glinda took it. He pulled himself back into the boat, balancing around Glinda's apprehensive squeaks as the craft tipped, then resteadied. Dashing the water from his face he added, "So, are you finished with your tantrum, paithi?"

"It wasn't a tantrum."

"No? Then what was it?"

"It was a combination of nerves and lack of sleep and culture shock, and it was perfectly acceptable," said Glinda the Press Attache, wiping away the last traces of her tears. "Oh my," she added, getting a glimpse of her travel companion. "Now, um, for goodness sake, put your shirt back on and let's go."

"I do beg your pardon, Miss," said Saranthos, with an exaggerated Gillikin accent. "I was only tryin' to be sportin' and lend a hand, don'cha know."

"Erm –"

"What?" Glinda noted that he seemed to be able to anticipate her questions. Was he smart or was she predictable?

"This might be rude, but…where did you _get_ all those scars?"

He glanced over his shoulder, his face vivid with laughter and his wet hair tumbling forward into his eyes. "Misspent youth."

"But you're only twenty-seven!"

"Eight."

"Oh, well, really…!"

---

At some point in the night, she heard voices. Again. Though this was somewhat louder and clearer than Saranthos' sleepy mumbles. Glinda heard a distinct mutter of something she thought might be, "there they are," and then a laugh and some other talk. In Quadling.

She lay perfectly still, terrified. They had followed her – them? – and they were going to do _something_. All the horror stories about murder and rape and violence in the lawless countryside came back to her and Glinda was so afraid she thought she might scream. She had to do something…anything…She caught her breath, dived, scrabbled in the contents of her bag and found what she was looking for.

There was an explosion. Glinda screamed and something else screamed, longer and louder, with a sort of whistling sound that made her feel sick.

"What in _hell_?" There was a rustle and then light bloomed over the riverbank, spreading across the faces of two shocked Quadling men, and Glinda Arduenna, holding a small gun in one outstretched hand, a look on her face which was half determination and half fear. Ludo Saranthos, holding the light, stared at the tableau and began to laugh.

"Ludo?" One of the men walked forward. "Ludo, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he said, recovering himself. "Glinda, paithi, what did you _do_?"

"I don't know." Glinda turned her eyes and the muzzle of the gun on Saranthos beseechingly. "I was so frightened…" She swallowed. "Where's the other one?"

"The other what?"

"I shot," she gulped, and the gun wobbled, "I shot something."

"That was my horse, _thespinis_," said one of the two Quadling gentlemen. He edged sideways. "No offense meant."

"Oh, don't worry, it's nothing personal; she's only annoyed that you disturbed her beauty sleep." Saranthos leaned over and removed the gun from the girl's shaking hand. "And don't point that thing at me." He stood up. "Trogen and Ambros Malthos, isn't it?"

"Yes," said the one who'd lost his horse. "It is. I – That is, we're here to escourt you to the second station – the Raiders were through last week right before the army, so the river's impassible and the forest is a bit disarranged."

Saranthos grinned. "I should think," he said. "All right. Let's go."

They packed quickly and followed the two men who also walked, leading one small, shaggy pony. Glinda moved closer to Saranthos and hissed, "Where are we going?"

He glanced down at her. "The second station. You'll like it – it has an enormous bathhouse and a very disgraceful brothel."

**A/N** _Yes, Glinda has a gun. After gifting Elphaba with heavy explosives in Midnight, I felt I ought to be fair to Miss Galinda as well, so she got a gun. It may soon acquire sequins. This chapter is presented with respectful apologies to Gregory Maguire, Stephen Schwartz, Charlie Marlow, and Francis Crawford, all of whom had a large hand in it. Nade-Naberrie gets points for leaving the best review(s) I've ever received, and Tom O'Bedlam asked a very pertinent question which, when I referred it to the expert, was answered as you see above. Be generous with reviews this holiday season!_


	4. Overheard Conversations

They did not go to the brothel. They went to a largish house just off the flat earth with a looming communal oven, which Glinda assumed must be the centre of the town. The house was solid, even if it was built out of dark mud-bricks. Glinda followed the three men in and was handed over to a silent-maid servant who gave her a curious blue-grey garment and pointed her in the direction of the bathhouse. As with the building she had encountered in Myrikos, this was a separate structure, the interior tiled and lit by many small, fat candles. Glinda was allowed to immerse herself in hot water for as long as she wanted, in an expanse the size of the swimming pool. She felt that she could not, in all fairness, complain.

The water – hot, soapy, and free of weeds or bugs or snakes or small buzzing things – was blessing enough. Being along, without the nagging weight of her pack and the rasp of the oars and the sleek superiority of Ludo Saranthos was even better. "If only," Glinda said to the wonderfully empty room, "that man would not say every clever thing that came into his head!" She shut her eyes and thought of nothing at all, and let the hot water soak into her angry muscles.

Later, she realized she had dropped off and finally gotten some uninterrupted sleep. Her fingers had gone pruney – "oh, _sugar_" – and her muscles felt wobbly, but her hair was gloriously clean. She put on the clothing provided and discovered it was a little too big. Loose grey trousers that tied at the waist and hung straight to the ground, with a knee-length tunic of blue fabric shot through with different shades of blue and silvery-grey. The sleeves belled a little and the cowl neck was perhaps a bit larger than necessary, but she would manage. She glanced at the shirt and trousers she had previously been wearing and scowled. At least these Quadling pyjamas weren't her wretched dirty things.

She recrossed the back garden, full of mysterious green things, and let herself in the first door she found. Saranthos saw her, lifted an arm to wave. "Finished, are you?" and Glinda walked over to him.

"Where do I sit?"

"On the chair."

She looked at the piece of furniture indicated, then back at Saranthos himself. "That," she said decidedly, "is not a chair."

"Yes it is, it just isn't what _you_ think of when someone says chair. Now, sit down before everybody thinks you're rude."

"They already thing _you're_ rude because you haven't introduced me," she pointed out, sinking onto the divan, and curling her bare feet up beside her. Saranthos was also clean, though his clothes were at least not pyjamas.

"Paithi," he said in an undertone. "Why are you staring at me?"

"You look presentable," she said. "I'd almost forgotten you were human." Saranthos didn't answer, only lifted an eyebrow and snickered.

"Are these your party manners, Ludo?" One of their escourts was standing near them. She didn't know which one it was because she couldn't tell them apart.

He blinked up and laughed. "No, these are my special manners. Glinda, this is Trogen; I don't think you've been properly introduced. Trogo, this is Glinda Arduenna, the Star of Oz. You may have heard of her in this benighted back-country town."

"Of course I've heard of her, Ludo. Don't be stupid. Welcome to the Second Station, Miss Arduenna."

"Thank you," said Glinda. She felt almost stifled, surrounded by these tall dark figures. She took a deep breath and reminded herself exactly who she was. _Glinda Arduenna of the Upper Uplands with a Shiz First in Sorcery and a Honours from The Meadows in South Gillikin. Press Attache to Madame the Press Secretary, Assistant to the Wizard's Council, press darling, and trend-setter for the entire north side._ "Thank very much, actually. I can't remember the last time I had a bath this wonderful. And, um, I'm sorry about, um shooting at you. If that was you."

The man grinned. "Think no more on it," he said formally, then added, "Ludo, I hope you've got some stories left in that empty cavern you call a brain."

"Gods, no," he looked almost uncomfortable. "It's your house – "

"And in my house, the guest starts." He sat down on to the fat cushion next to Saranthos. "Besides," he added, "we've heard all of Ambro's stories, including the filthy ones."

"Oh, you want filthy stories?" Saranthos' teeth flashed. "I guarantee you I know more filthy stories than Ambros Malthos." There was laughter. He had pitched his voice loud enough that the whole room, containing, Glinda saw, at least twenty people, could hear.

There was an outcry from one corner – "It's a lie! A lie, I tell you!"

"No lie. But," he raised his hands, "I'm not going to inflict them on my discerning audience. If you want to hear them, you'll have to come to the gaming house later tonight and we'll talk. But Trogen has asked me for a true story for tonight and I can hardly disoblige you or my kind host."

Glinda leaned back, hugging one of the cushions. She couldn't quite follow the liquid run of Quadling that made up the story. Judging from the reactions, it was rather funny, and she could see that, in the right circumstances, a narrative involving a heron and a bottle of glue might be humorous, but she was tired and didn't want to make the effort to understand. She looked at the room instead. It was one-storey with a fire in the centre; almost barbaric, really. The light came from more of those fat candles, set on every available table and windowsill. The windows themselves were made of heavy, whorled glass on different colours; dense blues and greens and yellows. The walls, hung with white and yellow fabric and little beads that made odd patterns over the texture of the cloth, were almost as strange. Everywhere were the fat cushions and little chairs.

Trogen leaned over and touched her shoulder. She started and looked up. He said in UO, "Would you like something to drink?" and handed Glinda a small clear glass. Glinda sniffed.

"What is it?"

"Just water. If you want raki or retsina, you'll have to wait until after the first tale."

"This is fine, thank you." Glinda sipped. She'd never heard of either of the other drinks. "Why is he telling stories?"

"It's what we do here." Trogen glanced over at his guest's profile. Glinda watched. She knew audiences and she recognized that he spoke well, and that people watched him. She supposed she should have guessed, having heard the story of Fedelma and her Otherworld lover. "We often tell stories at night," Trogen continued. "And if you know this, stop me. I'm never sure how much people _do_ know."

"No, please do go on."

"Normally the master of the house begins, but the guest is usually asked to speak first. It is a sign of courtesy. For Ludo it is – important. Like us, he grew up telling stories."

"Like us?" Glinda paused, confused by the man's voice. "But I thought – I thought he _was_ one of you?"

Trogen glanced at her, one eyebrow quirked. "Not anymore, I think," he said. "But I could be wrong. Would you like to sleep now, or will you stay? There will be more food later, and raki, and singing."

Glinda looked back at the candle-lit centre of the room, and the dark, intense faces, and the straight lines of Ludo Saranthos' profile. "I'll stay, thank you."

For the first time, Trogen smiled fully. "Good," he said.

She probably shouldn't have bothered, though, since she fell asleep before the end of the story and spent the night on the not-a-chair with her head buried in a pillow.

She woke the next morning feeling oddly refreshed, and found the room empty. Someone had kindly left her a bowl of grains in thin milk and a plate of fruit, which Glinda ate while she wandered around the room, looking at the pillows and the funny coloured glass in the windows. Then, because she couldn't find anyone else, she went into the street, which lead to the marketplace, full of vendors. "Oooh," said Glinda the Good to nobody in particular, "this is better than food _and_ a bed _and_ a bath: I get to go _shopping_!"

It was late afternoon by the time she caught up with Saranthos, at which point, she heartily wished she hadn't. "You've got some nerve coming around here!" Glinda, her hands full of shimmering blue cloth, froze.

"Oh, for god's sake." Saranthos sounded bored. "If it makes you feel any better, Aras, I didn't have much choice."

"Bastard."

"Technically, no, though I'm sure you know what they say about my mother." There was a pause and Glinda shifted uneasily. She was blocked by a piece of convenient fabric from the wall against which Saranthos leaned, but if she moved she would be visible again. She wasn't sure if he'd noticed her; she had been planning to pop out and surprise him.

"Quiet, you traitor rat."

There was a pause. "_What_ did you call me?" Glinda peeped around the screening cloth and saw that Saranthos was standing very still, almost frozen, and concentrated in a way that she'd never seen before. One hand curled slightly.

"Traitor." The other man spit. "Traitor to your family and your people and your village, even your cursed trade. Traitor to your country, you swamp fox." Another pause. The speaker went on, softly. "You might think the past is dead, Saranthopolous, but take my promise, Aras Arasmeni' s word, that nothing's dead and buried in this country. Not after _that_. Twelve years, and it's still fresh in my mind." He moved, grabbing Saranthos by the collar and jerking the taller man's head down. "Still living, so to speak, and it won't be forgotten for another fifty years."

Saranthos moved finally, his hands twisting around the other man's and throwing him backwards. Saranthos looked down. "What, Aras Arasmeni? What will be forgotten, exactly?"

Aras stood, shaking his fingers. He was shorter and stockier than Saranthos, but he was still angry. "A family so steeped in corruption they destroyed their own. Eating outwards, Saranthopolous, like a blight. Our fields were watered in blood because of you!"

Saranthos stood still for a moment, and then began to laugh softly. Arasmeni stared at him in disbelief, then spat again, turned, and stumped off. There was a long pause and Glinda began to feel that she couldn't breath. Finally Saranthos said, "You can come out, Glinda. The bad, grumpy man has gone now."

"I didn't mean to intrude." She walked around the stall, her cloth still in her hands.

Saranthos looked down at her and seemed to refocus his eyes. "I think the fault is his, not yours." He looked at her for a moment, then added, "Your cloth – it'll get dirty."

"Oh." Glinda stared down at her hands as though she'd forgotten the fabric, which was spilling over her fingers and down to the dust, rippling like water. Saranthos knelt and gathered the trailing ends, then stood. Impulsively, she pushed one hand through the cloth and squeezed the tanned brown one. "Was it so very bad, whatever you did?"

He let go suddenly and most of the cloth cascaded to the ground. "_Unnamed God_," snapped Ludo Saranthos, "Will you just leave be?" He turned and walked off, leaving Glinda with an armful of blue fabric and a question on her lips.

---

He wouldn't speak to her that evening either, and sat across the room from her, talking to Trogen and a tall girl in red. There were more stories and then singing; food was passed around. Glinda wasn't sure what to make of the thick, spiced stews and crumbling cheeses, or the raki that made her dizzy and the pine-flavoured retsina that made her cough. As the evening passed, she drifted into a stupour, resting her head on her hand in her little corner and watching the centre of the room like as though it was a play. It might well have been, she thought, stifling a yawn. Anything she didn't have a part in was…odd. Almost artificial.

Someone had brought out a funny, whispery instrument with a number of strings and a gleaming feather resting along the soundboard. Then they began to sing, and Glinda listened, feeling isolated and unwanted. How dare he ignore her? How dare this take so long…How… Eventually she drifted off to sleep of some sort.

When she woke, the room was half dark and nearly empty, but for tall three figures, facing each other in the light of the fire.

"You can't be going _there_?" It was the girl in red, whom Glinda didn't know. She sounded surprised.

"Whyever not?" Saranthos sounded unperturbed. He paused then said, "What, don't tell me sweet Melli has raised the country-side to hunt me like a Phoenix?"

"Did Ambros tell you the Raiders had been through?" That was Trogen, his voice just a little severe.

"Yes. He mentioned it." There was a slight pause and then Saranthos said, "_Ah_. Melli has heard from some covert source –"

"In Myrikos."

"Thank you. – That I was coming south to Kurtzel and immediately assumed I had a legion of five hundred at my back?"

The girl sighed. "Unfortunately. Look, why did you bother? Everyone from Kurtzel to Myrikos is up in arms; you've even got Arasmeni out his burrow."

"Yes, I had the pleasure of talking to him today."

"Everyone knows – " Trogen began.

Saranthos was laying sideways, propped up on one elbow. "No, no, I'd rather figure this out. Melli thinks I'm coming to crush the village into the ground, as if it needed it. Aunt Rouna no doubt thinks I'm coming back to burn her alive in her house in some kind of vengeance. Trogen just thinks I'm impractical. And you, Ria. What do you think?" He glanced up at the girl and then laughed softly. "Oh, Ria, _no_. You think I'm back for the Folly."

"Well, you are, aren't you?"

"Don't bother to tell us you're not." Trogen tossed another log on the fire. "We won't believe you. You don't even know for sure the damn thing exists; why risk yourself?"

"Why can't anyone," said Saranthos sweetly, "believe that I in fact had no desire _whatever_ to go back to Kurtzel, and came because they told me to?"

"You're a Saranthopolous," said Trogen. "Which means three-quarters of you is unmanageable and disinclined to obey orders."

"The other quarter of you is outcountry mutt and likes shiny things, which is why, cousin of mine," the girl pushed his shoulder and he rocked a little, "I assume you come for the Folly. You all want the damn thing."

"Here now," he rolled to a sitting position. "I didn't say I didn't _want_ it; I just said that I hadn't come specifically _for_ it. Ria, whether you want to believe me or not, I'm going to Kurtzel to do a job."

"And what job is that?"

"I have to find someone and drag her, kicking and screaming, back to the Emerald City as our newest convert." He paused maliciously. "Green with anger, I should think."

"Oh, Lords on High." Trogen let out a long, exasperated breath. "You're after the Witch. What makes you think she's in Kurtzel?"

"Army gossip. Best kind there is. But Ria, tell me about Melli. What's she done?"

"She and Aunt Rouna are convinced that you've got a troop of Gale Forcers and are going to rape the region. Again."

Saranthos pinched the bridge of his nose. "How did I get to be related to somebody so stupid?"

"She has reason," said the girl sharply. "Either way, _you_'d be damn stupid to waltz into Kurtzel like a tourist."

"I," he said severely, "never waltz anywhere. Besides, I'm traveling with the Star of Oz. Nobody's going to attack me."

Glinda, half-awake, bristled. The woman Ria laughed. "Ah yes, Glinda the Light-Bearer. You really think _she's_ going to keep you safe?"

"Ria," Trogen began.

"She's quite accurate with a gun," offered Saranthos. "When she stops shaking long enough to fire. Yes, I do think that most people will leave us alone. She's popular, even down here." He glanced at his cousin. "What do you think of her?"

"I think that you like shiny things too much."

There was a slight pause. Then Trogen said, "Look, Ludo, Melli's got the whole place up in arms. The Army's here anyway, because they always are, and the Raiders are mobilized and wandering around getting underfoot because they know you're coming back. It's _not safe_."

"I know." He stood and looked down at both of them. "Neither am I. We'll go tomorrow." He paused for a moment, then said in a mocking voice Glinda knew well, "Is there anything I can get in Kurtzel for you?"

---

They left the next morning, back in their canoe and replenished with food and water, Glinda's shopping shoved in a corner. They rowed in silence, Glinda sulking and Saranthos disinclined to speak.

At night, though, curled in bedrolls and back on the forest floor, Glinda said, "I didn't know you had a cousin."

"I didn't know _you_ knew I had a cousin." Saranthos rustled in the dark. "How did you get hold of that little nugget?"

"I heard you talking last night. She looks like you; I'm sorry I didn't get to meet her."

"You mean that, don't you?"

"Yes. I – Look, Saranthos." She bit her lip. "Ludo – can I call you that? – we're supposed to be traveling together. You know, as a partnership. And because of that, well, I think you really ought to explain to me what's going on."

"I _ought_ to? What exactly do you think is your position on this little jaunt?"

"Communications facilitator," she said instantly. "That's what I _do_, silly. I thought you knew that. And I'm going to talk to Elphie, when we find her."

"_If_ we find her." Saranthos' voice was soft, oddly suppressed, although she couldn't tell if it was amusement or impatience.

"Oh, stop humouring me!"

"What?"

"You're being nice again. Condescending. I may not be a crack tracker or anything, but I'm not _stupid_."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. Let me start again. What did you want me to explain, exactly?"

"Well, if there are people after you, I think you should tell me who they are and why they're coming after you."

"It's none of your business."

"If I'm traveling with you, it is." Glinda crossed her arms and took a deep breath. This was harder than it should be. Why, oh why, was she stuck with the only person she had ever met that she couldn't talk to? "Look, what did you do?"

"What did I _do_?" He swore, softly, in Quadling, then said, lightly, "I killed my uncle, Glinda. Are you happy you asked?"

"My…stars," she said faintly. "How horrible."

"Don't be so melodramatic. I did, and it was only partially accidental. That's all. In the middle of a civil war; it wasn't the wisest thing to do, but I did it."

"_Oh_." Glinda twisted the fabric of her shirt between her fingers, first one way, then the other. "I'm sorry. You…_killed_ someone?"

"I did. Several someones, as it turned out. And the country-side is…less than impressed."

"But you're from around here. How could you kill them? Or _family_? You're only supposed to kill the bad guys."

"Lurline and Lords on High!" There was a scratching sound, and Glinda realized he had risen to his feet. "Aside from the fact that, from your limited point out view, we _are_ the bad guys, really, so what?" His voice was savage. "Does a vague sense of nationality somehow preclude murder?" He knelt in front of her, and his hands closed hard around her arms. "Do you _really_ believe that?"

Glinda put her chin up. "Yes."

"Well then. Tell that to your Elphaba when you find her; ask her how _she_ feels about killing Munchkins and Guardsmen." He paused, and shook her slightly. "You tried to kill someone yourself, Glinda. How do you explain that?"

"What are you talking about? I've never tried to –"

"What about that horse? You aimed that gun, you pulled that trigger."

"But I –"

"You are not entitled to pass judgment because up until now you're done nothing but sit on your pretty little behind in an office and parrot back what the Wizard told you to say." Glinda didn't think she'd ever heard him this angry. She didn't think she'd _ever_ heard anybody this angry. "You are bound by the same laws as your Guardsman boyfriend or me."

"No, I'm not. I'm a Press Attache," she exclaimed. "I'm a member of the government, and I work for communication and better opportunities. I don't have anything to do with your little uprising down here, or with terrorists. I don't kill people! Stop trying to accuse me of doing something – I haven't."

"_Gods_. That's it – you _haven't_ done anything. You would do the same if you had, but nothing ever pushed your outside of ridiculous little pink bubble." He shook her again, hard. "You haven't got a thing to do with this country, and trust me, you're not here to do anything for it. I don't think you're capable, and even if you were, you wouldn't." He paused. "And it's not an uprising, Glinda Arduenna, it's a _occupation_."

"Whatever."

"No." His hands squeezed tighter. "Not whatever. This is _important_. How hard is that for you to understand?"

"Please – you're hurting me."

He let go suddenly and said, in a quieter voice, "The distinction is rather significant."

"I'm sure it is." Glinda rubbed her arms. "I still can't believe you _killed_ someone. And your uncle? How could you?"

"Oh, grow up, Glinda," Saranthos snapped. "Go to sleep, if you can manage it; we don't have time for ignorant hysterics."

Her brow furrowed. "You didn't have to say that."

"For the love of heaven, _go to sleep_." She heard him rustle, preparing to move away.

"But, I mean, you're just Quadlings. What do you fight _over_? It's not like there's anything here."

She heard his breath catch as he inhaled sharply; it was the only warning she had before his hand cracked across her face in a sharp slap. Too shocked to cry out, Glinda fell silently to one side and then sat upright, slowly raising a hand to her cheek. "I can't believe you just did that."

"Believe it," said Ludo Saranthos shortly. "If you were a man, I might have done worse."

"God, you're so _barbaric_," said Glinda, and burst into tears. She lay awake after that, staring at the felt darkness, her eyes and cheek stinging and her brain seething. Finally, she rolled over, crawled out of bed and grabbed her pack. Rifling the top of Saranthos' bag, she found a handful of slow-burn flare boxes, one of which she lit. Then she headed out towards the river. If he didn't want her, fine. She didn't want him either.

**A/N** _Like the plague-stricken villager in Monty Python's Holy Grail, this story staggered up a few weeks ago and announced in plaintive tones that it wasn't dead yet. Given that it had to nag me for weeks to get started in the first place, it shows remarkable determination for something which is, after all, only fanfic. Credit belongs, of course, to Gregory Maguire and the Wicked team and I apologize for the long delay in updating. It's blocked in my head, I'm just having trouble getting it on paper. If, of course, anyone is still reading this._


	5. Changing the Rules

Dawn found her in the middle of the jungle. Glinda looked around, decided she could stop for breakfast, and sat down on a flat patch of ground. She fished out a map and found the river. Each mile was marked and she could just about pin-point their position. Now, if she had walked _that way_…she pulled the compass out of her pocket. "Scoff on, Ludo-stupid-Saranthos," she remarked to nobody, "I can use a compass. So _there_." With a little bit more effort, she found where she thought she might be. She needed to go roughly southeast. Eventually she would hit the road – it turned out there _were_ quite a few good ones – and from then, she could walk that way. It would be easy.

Or not. Three hours later, she wasn't sure it would be quite _that_ easy. The map scale was smaller than she had thought, and she felt like she wasn't going anywhere. Just tree after tree after tree. "Oh well," said Glinda. "It's an adventure, right Elphie, Fiyero? I've always wanted to have an adventure." She pulled her pack up and kept walking.

She walked in that determined frame of mind for the next two days. By then, she was getting used to the jungle and the blisters on her feet were back. Ironically, now that she was free of arbitrary – and paranoid – travel decisions, she chose not to make a fire. Ironic that she was all alone in an unfamiliar country, walking goodness-knows-where through forests full of soldiers and she could suddenly sleep at night. Maybe, she thought, trudging along, it was _because_ it was just her. It was easy to believe that she was the only living being among all these primordial trees.

She sat under a tree and looked around her, listening to the forest talk to itself and watching the evening fell. It did it rather slowly here; none of the sudden blue of her homeland, but a soft fading purple that blurred the lines between night and day, light and shadow. Remembering something, she began to dig through her bag trying to find out whether she had actually brought the dried plums. She had grabbed food in such a hurry she wasn't even sure what she had and did not have.

She found extra clothing, some other food, bedding, odds and ends, and then, down at the bottom, something solid. "Oh, Lurline." Glinda tugged and pulled it out. "I forgot I brought this." It was her wand, six inches of silver topped with a star the size of her fist. It glittered half-heartedly in the Quadling evening; the light wasn't right for it. Glinda turned the wand over in her hands. In the right light, it sparkled like a small star and she would be the only person in the whole crowd who knew that what she held was actually plated silver and a mostly-silver ornament decorated with bits of clear glass.

On the other hand, it was her job and joy and particular talent to change what people saw, which was probably another reason why even a sparkling toy caught the attention. She held it up and waved.

Golden sparks coughed out of one end and Glinda smiled. She then dragged all her concentration onto the silver stick in her hand and worked for the Eden Tree, which was the Exercise she had done for her Shiz final. Way too long ago.

It took a minute to come back, but it was still there. A moment of concentration, a push just like _that_, and hanging in the dark purple air was a silver tree about a foot high, the long leaves golden and blowing in an incorporeal breeze. Ruby and diamond flowers peeped out now and again, and the whole thing seemed to shine with its own internal light. Flowers bloomed to be replaced by darker red fruits which fell, along with the gently moving leaves. It was Glinda's favourite Exercise and she hadn't done it in forever. She let it go, finally, and leaned back against her own tree, turning the wand over and over in her hands.

She could remember receiving it from Madam Morrible the day before her graduation from Shiz. "Here, my dear. I think we all agree that you have earned this." Madam Morrible had placed the wand in Glinda's hands and put one of her own paws on Glinda's shoulder, and Glinda hadn't been able to figure out which one was heavier. It had chilled her fingers then and she'd been acutely aware of the fact that it shouldn't have been hers. "Supposed to be yours, Elphie," she said lazily, watching the point of light reflected from the star through half-closed eyes. "Supposed to be yours, along with the Attache position and the parades and a wardrobe and…You'd have hated it."

"Of course I would have." The voice was comfortable, as though the owner was sitting quite near Glinda and had been for some time. Glinda, more than a little asleep, didn't question. "And if waving that sparkly thing around so the nice people say 'oooooh' is all you do, I'm not surprised that even you figure I'd have hated it. Just out of curiousity, _is_ that all you do with it?"

"Mmhmm," murmured Glinda. "It's all I can do, Elphie. We had this discussion _ages_ ago: all I can do is pretty pictures."

"Glinda, you change what people _see_. That's a little more important than pretty pictures. They have a saying here, _E kanoves agoviouv sto horafia_. You should try something new."

"Elphie, what're you talking about?" Glinda shifted and the wand fell from her hand to her knee. The added energy woke her, and she looked around. "_Elphie_?" There was no answer, only the quiet chirping of the forest. "So I should try something new, huh? What?" She made a little face. "Really, this is _ridiculous_. Fine sight you make, Miss Glinda, sitting in the middle of a forest and talking to yourself." She nodded firmly, then put the wand away.

She hit the road the next day as evening fell again in its parti-coloured subtlety. "_Vradiazei_," she said, trying out her Quadling. "One of the only things he's good for," she added. "I wonder if I know enough to ask for a ride?" She stopped, then, and held still. Something wasn't right. The road itself, glazed yellow bricks mended in black tar, ran like a straight gash though the trees, and the last of the cool sunshine shone down as though it too wanted to get out of the swamp and back to the Emerald City.

Quiet, Glinda thought. That's what it is: quiet. Too quiet for evening – usually the birds were just going to bed and the jungle talked to itself. Not here, though. She dropped to her knees in the brush and scanned the road itself. Would it have some kind of security guard? What was it? What was wrong?

Something moved on her left and she jumped. Glinda realized, without knowing exactly how, that it was a man – either a solider or a Quadling dissident; she didn't know which but either was bad. She began to move stealthily to her left until she couldn't feel him, at which point she got to her feet and ran like hell. Heck. The blazes.

A little while later it occurred to her that she was being herded, though she wasn't exactly sure where. "I'm not going this time," she said to herself. "I'm going to ask them what they want. I'm not scared. I'm _me_. Everybody loves me." But her fingers crept into her pocket anyway, and when she had her hand on the cool butt of her gun, she felt better. Taking a deep breath, she climbed to her feet, straightened her shoulders…

…and dropped to her knees again when gunfire rang out very close by. Someone yelled in Quadling, "_Ekei! Ekei, o valtos!_" and she heard the sound of people running. Closer, harsh breathing, rustling of someone moving…very…quietly…Glinda yelped, and dived for the road, running across it through a burst of evening shadow as quickly and quietly as she could. She tumbled into a ditch on the other side and lay on the mud, holding her hands to her and trying to control terrified breathing. She found she was chanting under her breath, "hide me, hide me, hide me, need more dark, need more dark, need more dark."

She was shivering when someone dropped on top of her. Literally.

"_Ai gameisou!_" said whoever it was.

"Eeek!" said Glinda, trying to roll away and reaching rather desperately for the gun in her left pocket. Since he was still on top of her, they struggled a few moments in mutual silence.

A flare went off somewhere and their ditch was suffused with the edges of harsh white light. "Ah, I thought so," said Ludo Saranthos, and let her go. "How the hell did you get in this ditch without my seeing you?"

"Oh my goodness," said Glinda faintly. Saranthos looked as though he'd been running ever since she left. His hair was hanging in his eyes and he had lost his jacket entirely. His shirtsleeves were black and shorter than they should have been, and he had acquired a very impressive purple bruise on one cheek. He was also, she saw, breathing hard and holding down something very like suppressed laughter. "I have no idea. What's going on?"

He grinned. "The Raiders are after me, and the Army's after the Raiders, and every villager in a ten-mile radius has turned out to harry the Army. It's rather exciting."

"_Exciting_?"

"What else?" He caught her arm. "Come on, then. We've got to move."

Glinda crawled after him. "Where are we going?"

"Towards the river, eventually, but we have to go a bit up river to shake them."

There followed several moments of silent scrabbling in the shrubbery. "I think they're catching up," Glinda muttered, tumbling sideways into a hollow next to him.

"Damn. Give me your gun."

"What?"

"Gun. Yours. To me."

"Oh, sorry." Glinda fished it out of her pocket and handed it over.

"Ludo?" He grunted. "What does "_e kanoves agoviouv sto horafia_" mean?"

He swore. "Hmm? Oh. Gods. Um, I believe the best translation is something like, the rules change in the reaches."

"Reaches?"

"Fields – the far south part of the swamp. Where'd you pick that up?"

"I heard it someplace. To the left; there's someone over that way."

"_Thank_ you," he dodged and held the whippy plant back for her. "Mind your head – there's an overenthusiastic branch up there." They knelt, quiet, and Saranthos continued to fiddle with the gun. "I haven't heard that in years; my _yiayia_ used to say it, but…what did you do to this thing anyway?"

"Nothing."

"Ah, that'll be the problem then." There was a smack near them and the sound of heavy feet stamping the bushes. "Oh, _damn_ all for the Other Folk. _Paithi_, can you cover for me?"

"What am I supposed to _do_?"

"Dunno," he grunted, squinting at the mechanism of the gun. "You've got a sorcery degree haven't you? Make some magic."

"I don't know _how_," she wailed. The rules change in the reaches indeed, she thought sulkily. All she could do was pretty pictures. And light. Lots of light, which was kind of bad when you were trying to _hide_. She reached into her pack and freed her wand, trying to think of anything _useful_ you could do with light. There was the Jubilee Exercise – nope, that was fireworks. Ozma's Delight was a theatre stage with people on it. "Three-Way Firedrill," she said out loud.

"_What_?"

"It's an Exercise. It's this thing where you point at stuff and…never mind." Glinda lay flat on her stomach and peered through a hole in the shrubbery. Three-Way Firedrill was a flare Exercise which involved sending up warning flares from three places simultaneously. No one said you had to be at any of the three places. She picked a spot six feet to the left, one roughly straight ahead, and one at a deep angle to the right, then, holding the image of three tree silhouettes in her head, did a complicated jab with the wand and let go.

It was like fireworks, high blue-white fountains sailing up to the sky from all around them and fizzling slightly. "Pretty," said Saranthos. He slid the gun into the waist of his trousers and jerked his head. "Come on; I think we can get through this way if I can get my hands on a machete."

She tried not to think what this villainous-looking and cheerful Ludo would do with a machete. "All right."

Several feet later, it appeared his idea was not going to work after all. The hundred meters between them and the river had been cleared of underbrush. While there were still trees, there were significantly fewer convenient bushes. "We're going to have to be a bit more devious," he said softly. Glinda looked up and noticed that he was laughing again.

"You look positively unholy," she remarked.

"Whoops. Look, I'll run, and you can bring up the rear with some kind of pyrotechnics."

"I can't."

"Not really an option anymore. Just do."

"But –"

"Come _on_."

When he ran, Glinda ran after. They made it to the first tree, but there were shouts from around: they had been seen. Behind the second, Glinda grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hang on; I have to do something."

"Make it fast."

She dropped to her knees and dug a small hole, then ripped a chunk of fabric out of her sleeve and lined the hole. Gnawing on her lower lip the entire time, Glinda filled her hole with water and touched it with the wand, trying to see the hole as an enormous lake that would stretch as far as the eye could see in both directions. Then she got up and ran.

"What," Saranthos asked when she caught up, "was that?"

"It's usually the Vacation Lake Exercise and you do it with salt water and a silver bowl – means you can see a lake when you turn it on. I did it once at a party with blue schnapps in a martini glass and we got an alcohol lake, which was rather exciting. But I think it will slow them down; do you?"

Saranthos laughed. "It might. More fire would be good though – _hell_." He put a hand between her shoulder-blades and pushed. Glinda fell to her knees as the shots came from their right; clearly some intelligent soldier had gone around to the right and taken up position there.

Glinda pulled her wand out and did the Jubilee in green because it was all she could think of. While the fireworks went off, she grabbed Saranthos as he fell and dragged him sideways towards the water. "Are you all right?"

"I think something went through my bicep."

"Oh! Is that bad?"

"Well, it's not _good_. No, it's fine, I just can't aim a gun very well with my left hand. Looks like it's back to throwing things." He went to the nearest tree and gave is a good hard shake. Little nuts came raining down, stinging as they hit Glinda's head and neck. On her knees making another Vacation Lake, she scowled at him. Saranthos gathered his new projectiles. "Can you do anything to make these more interesting?"

Glinda's eye fell on a patch of _fedelmi_ by his left foot. "Hang on." She touched the pile of nuts with her wand and tried to do Winter Wonderland, a hostess's charm for chilling drinks. "Throw them quick, otherwise your hand might freeze." When he threw them – with his bad arm, wincing – they glowed. "Weird," said Glinda. She upended some water, mixed up some mud, and tried Vacation Lake again. A really big swamp? That would be nice.

"Here." He pushed a flask into her hand.

"What is it?" She filled the rest of the hole.

Saranthos smiled gleefully. "Raki," he said, and dropped a match into the small patch of mud. Glinda jumped backwards as the entire swamp lit on fire and began, unaccountably, to laugh.

They made it to the river in one piece, a bit scorched and breathless, but alive. Glinda only came to her senses in the boat, sculling away across from that annoying face (which had relapsed, unfortunately, into annoying instead of battle-giddy). "All right, stop a bit. Current'll carry us for a bit."

Glinda surveyed him and said in a rather tremulous voice, "You hit me."

Ludo paused in whatever he was doing to the boat and answered, without looking at her. "Yes. I'm sorry. Temper; it's a family trait and I should know better." Glinda found she didn't have a response.

**A/N **_I will finish this story. Even if it's taken me this long to actually write it. I've got it all on paper, and while I don't like all of it, it's untidy to leave it partly finished. Wicked characters and settings belong to Baum, Macguire, and the musical team; "the rules change in the reaches" belongs properly to Ursula K. LeGuin, but I've been looking for an excuse to use it for a long time. Again, Glinda's persistence in getting her strange little adventure on paper knows no bounds. I promise, the next three chapters will appear soon and at regular intervals. _


	6. Swamp Fox

Later, as they made camp beside an enormous bush, Glinda discovered she was too tired to worry about creepie-crawlies but too keyed-up to sleep. She turned the direction she assumed was Ludo and said, "What was that they were calling you?"

"_Valtos_? It means swamp in UO, but we use it to mean Swamp Fox, sometimes. My nickname, for services rendered."

"Oh." Glinda shifted and took a deep breath. _It's all right. He's too far away to hit you._ "Tell me?"

There was a long pause. Then, out of the dark, a rich story-telling voice with, like the night, a bitter tinge under it. "I was born ten years before what would later become known as the Second Occupation, the first having occurred thirty years before, when the Qua'ati Lowlands were officially annexed by the Empire of Oz. The Second Occupation was considerably more dramatic than the first but then, the Ozma's ministers had only been politicians, not prospectors. And the Ozma Astartis was no Wizard.

I was born into a family of – what shall I call it in your language? Finders is the best translation, but not a very appealing one – a family which made its wealth by finding rubies. They ran extensive trade networks that extended like red threads over the whole country, buying, selling, cheating, and killing to get the blood-red stones that are the country's only export. They also knew where to find the stones in the ground; what part of the swamp to dreg and how to dig for the rubies.

The Saranthopolous family had been Finders for generations. We were good – we were the best. Rubies in our soul, people joked…they say my father was revered as a demi-god by the backwoods people. He died young, and when he went, all the villages were in mourning, silent from dawn to dusk.

My uncle took over the leadership of the family and put me on the next boat up the river. I've been up the Potamos at least five times, six now, but the first time was like – magic. Every turn had something new and alive. I think I fell in love with the swamp then, a little…" Ludo's voice trailed off and then returned to the narrative. "Working my way up and down the vast length of the Potamos, I picked up colourful versions of three languages – very learned for Muggy Bottom.

When I was ten, the soldiers came, and by the time I was nearly eleven ,there was a garrison an hour from his village and everyone knew the shameful politicking which had placed _Kurio_ Petanos in the position of puppet president for the Wizard's City government. The elderly man was a veteran of the first Occupation and loved by most of the country but once we got him in power, we realized exactly what they had: a tottering, shaky old man who believed in a way of life that no longer existed.

Resistance spread like wildfire and I left the flat-bottomed river boats and took up a new profession as message-runner. It was rough – Uncle still lived like a Finder prince in our house and my mother spent a little under a year in her cottage just out of town. Then the rumour went round she was a collaborationist and – well. They shaved her head in front of the communal oven and ran her out of town. I suppose she ran to the friendly soldier who'd liked her hospitality, and god knows what happened to her in the army camp.

My sister Eleni took off just after I turned 11. I knew she'd been playing the Royalist troop; it was a rare girl that wasn't. I remember it - one night she pulled me over into a copse of trees and told me she thought Uncle killed Father. They got this message: Father was just home from something and he'd been soaked through and had a touch of winter chill. That's dangerous down here, where it's so wet. And Uncle came around to the house and said they'd found a huge load and that Father had better come have a look as well. 'The colour of blood,' he said." Ludo's voice softened, dropping into a register almost dreamy. "Rubies like pomegranates, worth half a jarl of gold each." He laughed faintly, reflectively. "There was no way any Saranthopolous was going to ignore that. So they went back out into the rain and then a week later, Uncle came back and said that Father was dead at his house."

It's certainly no proof and at that point Eleni asked if I'd ever heard of the Folly. _Everyone_ in the village had heard at least eighteen versions of Vass Saranthopolous' Folly. He bought it for his wife's sister, then murdered the wife and eventually the sister and then killed himself, all for this necklace. Twenty gold jarls, I think. Five pounds of silver fittings and pomegranate rubies with facets like a night in August, I think is how Mala at the gaming house puts it. I never," he added irrelevantly, "understood what facets like a night in August looked like. I think I told her that."

And Eleni said, 'Just rocks – that's all it looks like. Rocks like little pomegranates.' She thought my Father had had it and then Mother got it, because Mother had shown it to her. She thought Uncle wanted it. Who wouldn't? Five pounds of red and silver with all these tiny points of green like stars in the silver…what happened to it after my mother was denounced, no one knew. Perhaps she tried to bribe my uncle, perhaps she took it with her, perhaps she left it in the cottage. When it burned down the week after she left, I assumed it was him. My uncle."

Eleni was gone the morning after that conversation, preferring her own tarnished independence to sharing her mother's humiliation. I stayed for the exciting job of running Muggy Bottom's black market. I suppose they thought I was cute; I spoke UO very well, and a little of whatever else I could pick up, and I must have been an entertaining little rascal. The soldiers slapped me on the back and treated me as a mascot; the villagers laughed; the surrounding settlers trusted me because I was my father's son, and that was good enough for them.

But what kind of a story would this be if I didn't make mistakes? And there were mistakes, all the time. And then there was the Folly…I couldn't stop thinking about Eleni and her story about the Folly. No one in the damn family can resist it; they say it calls to us: Vass killed himself over it, and his son had killed two men to get it back. Since then, we've held onto it better, but losses and regains and hiding of the Folly figured prominently in the family legends. At any rate, I did what any precocious black marketer shouldn't do – I started asking questions. Just little ones. Things about the Folly, things about my uncle, things about the past." Ludo paused and laughed bitterly. "Don't do that, paithi – the past is never as helpful as you think it should be. Anyway, it all got tied up: my parents, my sister, my uncle, and that beautiful five pounds of rubies and silver and emerald, all linked together in my beautiful, war-torn country…

When I finally got my information, I was fifteen, and damned if I was going to let it go unused. It was easy, really: a shipment of arms come east from the Free Tribes of the South Vinkuus and passed, labouriously, through the swamp. Whoever got to it first got to keep it: that's the rules of engagement. I let it drop to the avuncular soldiers at the camp and then reported it officially at the Resistance meeting. Ask me, it wasn't that I was playing double agent. It was simply maneuvering his Uncle into a position where he might get what he deserved.

It wasn't a bad plan, I suppose, but it was a debacle in practice. The Resistance arrived earlier than expected; the soldiers were caught in an ambush. A couple of men got shot and both sides recognized their cheerful, cheeky boy in the shadows. The soldiers got to me first, and took me to their camp." Ludo paused, then said, "I talked. I swear to the Unnamed God and the High Lords, it was the first and last time I did, but I _did_." After a long breath, he took up the story again in a different tone, more detached. "That was the end of it, what they call the Kurtzel Resistance in the north, and the beginning death-throes of the entire Southlands. Donos Saranthopolous was shot; the town occupied."

"Oh my God." Glinda found that she was holding her hands over her mouth in shock. "Oh my God. I didn't know things like that _happened_." There was a long pause. She reached out tentatively and realized he was much closer than she had thought. Her fingers brushed his in the dark, and they felt like iron. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Ludo – Ludo, what happened to _you_?"

"Me?" He sounded surprised that she had asked. "I went to the second basement of Southstairs with the rest of the political agitators. I suppose they didn't know what else to do to me."

"You were in _Southstairs_?"

"Two years, and no one's going to forget it."

"But I thought –" Glinda gulped. "_No one_ gets out of Southstairs."

"They just tell you that so you won't be scared." She supposed that somewhere in the dark Ludo was grinning. "In time-honored fashion, paithi. I bribed my way out – and no, I won't tell you how _that_ worked. It would only give you nightmares."

"But what did you do?"

"What all the convicts do: I joined a gang. For a bit – after the Resistance it was all a bit tame, actually."

"_Tame_?" Glinda squeaked.

"So I decided to cash in my chips and go see the Army."

"Did they arrest you?"

"No. Not exactly. Michael Pelham in Intelligence offered me a job."

"Major Pelham? But I _know_ him – he used to come to our dinner parties."

"Yes, he would have. Very posh gentleman."

Glinda shook her head. "I – I have nothing to say."

There was a chuckle from the dark. "Then try something new, paithi: don't say anything." There was a much longer pause as Glinda tried to adjust to this rather amazing story. "Glinda?"

"Yes?'

"Did I ever tell you the story about the woman who waited eight years for her husband to come back from battle?"

"No. Why was he gone eight years?"

"Fighting the Other Folk on the far side of the world. He came back from battle with a magic sword and fairy jewels for his wife and a box that would fit anything…he came back and he found her with a baby in her arms."

"Hers?'

"Well, she _said_ it was their older daughter's…"

The sun came up on a camp that was almost familiar. They moved around each other silently, stiff and tired and a little shy, almost. As if their battle, and the stories that had occupied the entire night had changed the way they spoke or moved. Finally Glinda, watching her companion, decided to take advantage of this weird liminality. "Can I ask you a question?" Saranthos grunted. "Why the beard?"

He muttered something unintelligible and then swore. Glinda sighed and put down the tiny mirror she was holding. Saranthos protested. "Oh, stop," she said, looking up at him. "Why bother?"

"Because," he grunted. "Will you be quiet."

"Don't be so silly – look, if you sit down, I'll do it."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Have you gone deaf?" Glinda dropped the mirror on her rolled pack. "You'll just cut yourself if you try again."

Saranthos started at her. "You just offered to shave me? _You_?"

"You think I can't?" Glinda took the towel and lather from Saranthos' unprotesting hands and, delicately, his silver straight-razor.

"No." He made an effort to hold onto the razor. "You are not coming anywhere near me with that."

"_You_ go near you with it three times a week," Glinda pointed out. "I can't see how I'm more dangerous."

"But you're –"

"What?" She clucked, examining the razor more closely. "Haven't you heard of safeties?"

"Forgive me paithi, but you're a girl. A very feminine one. Not that I don't appreciate that, of course, but I can't imagine you learned to give a shave at Finishing School?'

"No, don't be silly. It was a girls' school." Glinda put her hands on her hips. "Well, _sit_. I assure you, I can do your sideburns." When he hesitated, she added, "_Fiyero_ lets me condition his hair; that should be recommendation for anybody."

Ludo Saranthos gave her a stare of eloquent disbelief, but he sat and held himself stiff while Miss Glinda Arduenna of the Upper Uplands gave one of the closest shaves he'd ever received. Glinda, tidying the neat square of trimmed beard around his mouth, smiled to herself. As she'd suspected, Saranthos was somewhat like a male and truculent Elphie. "There." She passed him the mirror and smiled at the surprise when he saw that his precious dapper beard was intact. "They won't recognize you when you roll into town. Really, it looks quite smart – a good look for you."

"Stop, you'll make me blush," he answered without turning, kneeling to stow the mirror away.

"So, why the beard?" she repeated, standing by her bag and feeling smug that she was ready first this morning.

"Why the curls?" Saranthos reached over and pulled one, almost absent-mindedly.

"_Ow_!" He tugged harder than Fiyero ever had. "These are natural, thank you very much."

"But when you do curl them."

"It's pretty." Glinda ran a hand through her hair. "No chance of that here, though."

"Well, perhaps," Saranthos gave her a rather haughty look, "I have my vanity too."

"I don't believe you." Glinda giggled, then pulled her pack on her back and followed him to the boat.

**A/N **_This one is a bit short, but there's only so much you can do with something that's mostly narration. Thanks for the reviews; please leave more. Standard disclaimers apply – Wicked characters and situations apply. Astute readers may note the odd Heart of Darkness references and the evidence of some French coursework in the history of the Southlands…so good to know I'm putting a good education to good use…_


	7. Fire at Midnight

They sailed into Kurtzel as dusk fell that night and stopped somewhat upriver of the village. "Look," Glinda, hopping out of the boat. "We have a house for the night; I think it's abandoned."

"Looks it."

"How do we find her, now we're here?" Glinda demanded a little later.

"Damned if I know," said Ludo shortly. "We'll figure it out in the morning." He paused, then slapped her on the back as though she were a fellow soldier. "Get some sleep, paithi."

It didn't work very well. Glinda lay and stared up at the lighter outlines of the window until she decided to give up. "I can't sleep."

"Oh?"

"Yes, oh. This is the end of the line; this is here. _Bradiazei_; it's her favourite time of night." Glinda sighed, almost dreamily. Across the room, Ludo glanced up at her and wondered what she was thinking. It was hard to tell with Glinda, sometimes. She dug one hand into her curls and ruffled them vigorously, then sat up and began to lace up her boots. "It's driving me crazy, Ludo, knowing that she's out there and that I might be able to get to her."

"Don't go far," he said briefly. "And watch out for snakes."

"Thank you, Mr. Protective."

"Ooh, sarcasm. You're improving."

"I try." She dropped a little curtsey, grabbed the light jacket from on top of her pack, and ducked out of the low door-way.

Ludo remained on his bed-roll, abandoned book resting on his chest. Was she out there? This witch he was supposed to find, to contact, to drag back to civilization or shoot? He wondered if perhaps he should have mentioned that part to Glinda; he doubted Tiggular would have brought it up. Tiggular, had an unerring instinct for tact and far more brain that anyone, Tiggular included, gave him credit for. Hmph. Ludo gave his own sigh. If the woman had any sense, she would be far away by now – and if _he_ had any sense, he should be far away from here. He shut his eyes and tried to think of nothing at all. His head ached and he knew from experience that decisions would only make it worse. Damn Gandin, and damn the rest of his unimaginative crew.

"Ludovikh Saranthopolous." His name, uttered with perfect pronunciation, in a rolling, mellow alto shook him awake. "I want a word with you."

He got to his feet and grabbed his gun from the door, exiting slowly. Outside it was pitch dark and all he could hear were the swamp sounds around him, the rustles and creaks and soft, organic noises of small animals living and dying. Where the hell was Glinda? He could only hope she hadn't fallen into the swamp yet. "At your service, _Kyria_."

"My lady? You have a very strange idea of courtesy," she said from the near darkness.

"I recognize authority."

"I don't believe you. Respect General Gandin? Not you, Saranthopolous."

"I said authority, _Kyria_ Thropp, not position."

She laughed, and the sound made his skin tingle. She said another word, then, and suddenly there was light. Ludo let out his breath softly. Of the many things he had been imagining, this was not it. A tall woman, her night-coloured hair bound back with raw twigs, and the surface of her smooth skin a deep, luminous swamp-green. What her could see of her that wasn't face was dense black and undefinable. She had raised one green hand, holding a handful of red flames like a lantern. They danced on her palm, illuminating the planes of her face, straight and pulled to their extremes so that the familiar shapes of eyes and nose and cheekbones became almost grotesque. "And do you see authority?"

Ludo didn't answer. He said, instead, "Glinda has gone out looking for you."

"She has." He wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement, nostalgic or neutral. "As it happens, it is you I want to speak with."

"But it is Glinda who wants to speak with you."

The fire wavered and her face, with the shadows rearranged differently, became something else: a woman's face, beautifully tragic. He caught a flash in her eyes, perfectly black and near invisible in the shadows, and saw there regret and longing and something desperate and hungry. "I don't have time," she said softly, maybe to herself.

"They love you."

She moved the light again and he lost all of her face but the curve of her mouth and the line of her chin. "How touching; has Glinda developed multiple personalities – entirely possible – or did you bring more than one of my old school friends?"

"Glinda and the Winkie Prince Fiyero."

"Ah." The light wobbled. "Fiyero." She said another word, and her light grew much brighter. Ludo could pick out, now, the draped swirl of garments and the broom in the other hand. He couldn't tell whether she had come alone. "You know the stories, of course." She had changed to Qua'ati, the angular syllables and varying, slurred vowels rolling off her tongue with the fluency of a native.

"Which ones?"

"Stories about your family, about the reaches…also the stories they tell about this swamp." She beckoned. "Come with me, courteous assassin. I want to show you something."

He followed. Ludo Saranthopolous had never yet met his master, but now he wondered if perhaps it was because he had never recognized the possibility of having a mistress. They took a side path, away from the village and deeper into the dark forest, the only light the Witch's gleaming handful of flames. They were not particularly bright; if Ludo hadn't already known this (and all of the swamp) by heart, he would have fallen multiple times. As it was, he followed. She stopped by the Muggy Bottom, the waters opaque and almost perfectly still. "Look."

He followed the line of a long finger and saw, there in the depths of the bog, a red flame that might have been a reflection of the fire in her hand or might have been something else entirely. "Gracious Loken," he breathed. He looked sideways. "Are you trying to buy me, _Kyria_?"

He was close enough to see her lips part in a smile and hear the tiny breath of laughter. "Yes, Saranthopolous, I am. Bring Glinda tomorrow, and you'll be able to get your treasure and go back satisfied. She can get the jewels out for you if you have no fancy to get wet, I imagine. That school-magic must be good for something."

"And will you come back as well?"

Again that cool smile. "What do you think?"

Ludo moved fast, reaching up and grabbing her wrist. He jerked her forward and caught her upper arm, pulling the hand with the light between their faces. "I'm under orders to remove you if you don't recant."

Hooded eyes looked direct into his and he could make out the shape of her face entirely now. She was beautiful. Glinda had said it, in so many words, but Ludo hadn't believed it. Not until now, when he could see her face in full light and follow the contours into infinity like the moving flame of a candle. "Understand this. _I will not recant_. I will not change, I will not forgive, I will not be anything other than what they made me."

"And what is that?"

"A Witch. _The_ Witch." The thin mouth curved just a little. "They have made me, like their precious Unnamed God, in their own image and then raise an outcry when I do not play by their rules. What do you think of that, law-breaker and double dealer?"

"I am neither of those things, _Kyria_."

"That," she said gravely, "is unfortunate for you." The flames shot upwards, and he felt them hot on his face, frizzling his hair as they passed. He let go in surprise and in an automatic gesture to throw his hands over his face. When he moved them, the witch was gone, as silently and thoroughly as one of the Other folk.

He found Glinda waiting for him. She was combing her hair and humming, slightly off-key. "_There_ you are," she said when he came in. "I thought someone had assassinated you."

"Not yet."

"It's a rather poky village," she added. "Barely twenty houses by my count. Which reminds me, do you still have that blue cloth I bought? I think it might be in one of your bags –" She looked up and pushed her hair back from her face. "Ludo? Is something the matter?"

He sat down slowly and stared at his muddy boot-tips. The Folly within reach and, like smoke, the memory of holding bird-like wrists with a pulse that throbbed too slow to be fully human. "I – don't know," he said aimlessly. "I've just met your Witch."

"You've _what_?"

---

Something stung in the back of Glinda's throat. Elphie was supposed to make everything _better_. She wasn't supposed to hide and only come out for Ludo, who didn't deserve her and didn't know her and didn't need to _talk_ to her. "How could she not want to speak to me?" Glinda rubbed her wrist across her eyes, then gave up the battle and stared to cry. Ludo watched patiently until she raised her head and said, in a strangled voice, "Is it me, Ludo? Does everyone hate _me_?"

He was facing her, watching her in that off-putting way. "I wouldn't say we all adore you," he said, touching her shoulder almost tentatively. "But no, I don't think she hates you. She looked sad; almost – hungry. What was that phrase? That thing she said before she left?"

"Defying gravity?" Glinda looked up at him, cross-legged across the dirt floor from her. His hair was a bit sloppy, falling forward into his eyes and there was a streak of dirt across one cheek-bone. He rested his hands on his knees like a meditating preacher and watched her patiently out of those eyes she couldn't read.

"Defying gravity," he said gravely. "Do you know what it means to defy, _paithi_?"

She sniffed. "Means to say no."

"A bit." Ludo put out one of his big, graceful hands. Glinda hesitated, then placed her hand in his. "It is also to set at defiance; to resist boldly or openly; to set at nought. And gravity?"

"It keeps us down," she said slowly. "Keeps our centre where it is."

"It's a way of defining the universe so that we can understand it." She felt his hand squeeze hers. "It takes great courage to break the laws of the universe, let alone challenge them on their own terms."

"Fine, but why refuse to speak to me, when I've come all this way just to find _her_. It's only," Glinda sniffed, aware of how ridiculous she sounded. "It's only common courtesy."

"There's only so much brave you can do at once," said Ludo. "She's afraid that if she sees you, she'll have to stop being brave."

Glinda bit her bottom lip. "Are you sure? Did she tell you that?"

"No," said Ludo slowly, then smiled reflexively. "Not in the least; that was Fiyero."

Glinda smiled back through her the few late tears trickling over her face. "Fiyero always knows things like that. I think – I think he's one of the only people who ever understood Elphie, even at school."

"Mmm." Said Ludo.

Glinda slept a little that night, but awoke before the sun to find Ludo studying a map, running his fingers absently through the candle's heart. It was all the more disturbing for being apparently reflexive. He looked up at her, a quick and enigmatic glance. "Would you be willing to do a little more walking?"

"All right."

"Good. Get your wand."

And so she followed him out into the pre-dawn swamp.

**A/N** _I've been sitting on this chapter for ever and ever and I still don't know why I haven't finished the story. I don't even like it – I'm just compelled to end it. So yes, there are loads of continuity errors, for which I apologize. I may fix them, or I may not. We'll see. _


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